White Stripes : London Alexandra Palace

View Uncut.co.uk’s gallery from the evening by clicking here.


The man two yards in front of us in the long black coat and white brothel creepers sweeping into Ally Pally can’t help getting spotted, shouted and pointed at every ten yards. It’s only when he turns to acknowledge someone that I realise it’s ubiquitous chit-chat messiah Jonathon Ross. Not quite Kate Moss, but it’s good to know the Stripes’ celeb-pulling potential hasn’t dropped off any. At the bar a coterie of old buffers puff pipes, down the front a particularly tall NME staffer elbows his way into the throng while out on the sidelines Kewl Dads in box-fresh WS merchandise introduce their children to the world of live music. What an introduction.


"Back in the loving arms of London!" announces Jack White, flashing a smile you could see from space."My sister and I want you to know you’re back in our loving arms." It may not be the most original piece of information you’ll ever read, but
really are an astounding experience. The rigid simplicity of their look and brutally moronic howl of their music remains so startling that as soon as ‘Black Math’ or ‘Take A Whiff On Me’ crawl over our heads, scratching our ears and scalps with their yellowing claws, you wonder why you’d ever want to listen to anyone else.


‘Dead Leaves And Dirty Ground’ is all nerve-endings and no skin. Jack gets to be Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, he’s half preening peacock, half self-obsessed guitar god and Meg’s Jane Bonham thump is the primal heartbeat that makes sense amid the chaos. They’re Red Zep, divining ancient voodoo blues through their gloriously ham-fisted attack. When Jack collapses into Meg at the end of ‘I Smell A Rat’s’ elongated gitar’n’drerms battle both their faces are glowing with the sort of pleasure brother and sister are simply never meant to share. are sexually explosive. You can hear it in the screams as Jack wrings yelps of agony from his guitar, you can see it when Meg throws her head back in abandonment, singing along to ‘The Hardest Button To Button’ and you feel it in your very bones when she steps out to stand before us, clad in tight red shirt and dark blue jeans, to sing ‘In The Cold, Cold Night’. Every single band in the world would kill to have a moment this powerful in their set and you can hear their teeth grinding in frustrated, four-square, all-blokes-together anger as Meg pushes back a frond of thick, black hair and beams at us mercilessly.


But, and it’s a serious but, when the pair abandon the primal groove and Jack gets distracted flitting between his groaning church organ the atmosphere drops to the merely quite good. The brilliant thing about is how aware they are of exploiting the aching noise between the notes and when this is lost, like during the atonal horror of Blind Willie McTell’s ‘John The Revelator’ the magic is lost and you wake up in a large room with a Radio 2 DJ watching a young man being rilly grate at playing guitar.


Happily, a truly beautiful ‘We're Going To Be Friends’ wins everyone back, and only a fool could resist encore-closer ‘Seven Nation Army’. are the most perfectly pared down pop group we have. Let’s hope they keep it that way.


Rob Fitzpatrick