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We were all in love. Jack White is standing on stage, top hat
thrown to the side, sweat
glistening from the ends of his bluish
black frizzed hair, screaming "all together now: He's
lookin' for
a
home!" We're all singing, screaming. He's pounding the floor,
working his country twanging mad
action voice, when all of a
sudden a drunk college kid in khakis and a button down shirt is
on stage next to Jack,
grinning ear to drunkass ear, wrapping his
arm around Jack White. Jack kind of recoils in a disgusted
but
amused way. The
man, with the satisfaction of a baby, leaps from
the stage, laughing. Jack kind of calms himself
down. He
approaches
the mic huffing, kind of starts a few sentences and
then visibly gets an idea that he likes.
"Everybody quiet down now" he said, smiling. "Now I want
everyone to turn and look
at that man right there. Everybody
look." The entire stadium turns towards the drunk little boy
in
the audience. I
was too short to see but I'm sure he was not the
happiest of sports. As if this weren't enough, Jack
came to the
edge of
the stage "Now you're getting all the attention that you
wanted" he taunted in a baby
voice. "Did mommy and daddy drop you
off at the wrong concert?" He continued to baby the
kid. "Can we
continue the concert? You'd like that, wouldn't you? Well we're
not gonna!" At that, the crowd
freaked out: screaming and
wining.
Jack looked up at us with a smile "not cause of him. Don't
worry. He'll get his
come-up-ence. He'll probably do alot of coke
and beer tonight. He'll get his come-up-ence. How's
about a song
for
him, huh?" We screamed. We almost cried. Jack launched into
I Fell in Love With a Girl,
which according to a friend
of mine, who's seen them three times, he never plays.
The White Stripes are very strange. They are a rock band
comprised of a semi-mute female drummer
named Meg White and a
very odd looking semi-albino genius named Jack White, who sings
and plays guitar. They played both
the 12th and the 13th of
August at the Greek Theatre at UC Berkeley. I will spare the
opening band my scathing
comments.
This show was important because Jack White became completely
furious twice during the performance
and exposed some of his
political and emotional fire. Seeing a
near-legend-at-this-point's personality twice in one night,
especially since he
usually only says "Hello, I'm Jack White and
this is my big sister Meg. We're the White stripes.
We're from
Detroit", (as they did in the beginning this time), is quite
exciting.
The two of them are quite fascinating. Their stage was set
with a beach scene in white red and
black (their trademark
colors). Jack was wearing a pirate hat covered in a white peacock
feather emblazoned with a cross
on each side (representing, no
doubt, his new album's title Get Behind Me Satan, and
correlating with his
so-stated Catholacism). He was sporting his
new GOAT-tee, continuing far too far down his neck for
comfort
and a
mustache of two straight lines like mouth eyebrows. He is
completely color coordinated. Jack White
would be the ultimate
freak show if Meg White weren't twice as strange. She did not
speak once except to sing her new
portion of a song "Women,
listen to you mothers. Don't just succumb to the wishes of you
brothers. Take a step back,
take a look at one another. You need
to know the difference between a father and a lover.". Now,
this
is good advice.
However, her brother obviously directs the entire
scene, on stage, at least. He definitely told her
which song to
play
and a few times seemed to direct her in which drum sticks to
use. Not to mention, Meg is not the
quickest most complex
drummer. She is reminiscent of Ringo Starr in her consistent
banging. She uses more Bass drum though
and Ringo was always on
time. It's kind of like Jack needed a band and had a sister (so
we believe) that wanted to do it
with him, so she learned how to
kick a bass drum wicked fast and kind of stopped there.
The girl that I went with came up with a very poignant theory.
Maybe Meg has a mild mental
disability. She barely talks.
Sometimes she leaves her drum kit to sit on the floor and gaze up
at Jack while he plays.
The most exciting thing she did was play
her ride symbol with a rattle during a rendition of Red
Rain. It's very
possible.
Regarding their mysterious relationship (Jack introduces Meg
as his big sister and they have the
same last name, but they have
hinted that they may not be brother and sister), there is a song
on their new album called
I'm Lonely, that will further
confuse the matter, in which he says "when I'm lying in
bed
looking for
someone to touch" and precedes that with "I love my
sister, lord knows how I've missed her.
She loves me and she
knows I won't forget. And sometimes I get jealous of all her
little pets. And I'm lonely, but I ain't
that lonely yet." This
song would seem rather incestuous were ithey actually brother and
sister. On the other hand,
he addresses his mother as well and he
may be alluding to another girl when he speaks of touching.
Very
suspicious
though.
Besides the excitement illustrated above, earlier in the
concert, Jack freaked out when a Live105
balloon was thrown onto
the stage. Now, if I am correct, The White Stripes have been
played on Live105, the Bay Areas
mainstream "alt-rock" station.
Jack made a harsh little statement of discontent with this
station, however when
he saw the balloon, loudly mumbled
"motherfuckers." while shaking his head and told
everyone through
gritted teeth that they were going to take a five minute break.
Everyone was so confused. The
audience stared up the stage for
the full five minutes that he'd promised, screaming his name and
speculating as to what
made him so angry.
After five akward minutes, he emerged to more cheering than
when he first came out. He marched up
to the microphone and in a
sarcastic voice mocking that of a radio DJ, said "that break was
brought to you by
LIVE105!" The crowd almost died. That told us
he was against what we were against and oh, Jack!
What a freak!
This
show was incredible. My soul was purged of all prior
contents and filled to the brim with the
intoxicating passion of
Jack White's guitar and the raw image of his rotund sweating
person grinding his vocal chords for
us. His music still sends
shivers down my spine. I'm sure you know the feeling. The energy
was amazing.
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