Tuesday, my friend from school came to visit. I rushed home from work, picked up another college friend, changed my clothes, and drove us to the metro station. We rode the metro into the nation's capital. We ate at Pret-a-manger (I had egg salad sandwiches and lemonade). We got back on the metro. We stood in line (the most yuppie looking of the entire crowd, and I'm not that yuppie looking). We got to the door (sweet air conditioning!), my bag was thoroughly checked, my right hand was stamped a bold "8:15."
We dashed up the stairs, and stood for what felt like ever against the iron railing, the decorative knob shoving further into my cleavage (ouch) as the venue grew fuller and fuller. We stood on the balcony, at the edge of a mass crowd five rows deep, and watched those below us crowd closer and closer, stretching back past the sound booth and towards the bathrooms. And then, a great blue eye lit up the projection screen at the back of the stage. A cheer went up that reverberated through the railing and into my ribcage. The frequency grew more intense--Jack White took a seat behind his massive drum kit, and Alison Mosshart's hand reached out to form a white-knuckled fist on the front microphone.
The Dead Weather had come to town.
Alison Mosshart is a hero of mine--possibly the biggest one I have. She seems so sweet and funny in interviews, and shy, then comes onstage and dominates with this amazing physical presence and dynamite vocals. She pulses around the stage like a mix between Mick Jagger, Stevie Nicks, and some undefinable factor that makes her performances totally her own. She squawks and chirps in certain songs, screams and yells in others, and still sounds beyond cool. Her Jack Skellington legs lift and bend at amazing angles, clad in everpresent black denim. Gold boots glint as she stands precariously on the edge of the front speakers. I couldn't blink, could barely breathe as I tracked her movements across the stage and was still only when she perched on an amp to beat a tambourine while Jack White took the main vocals.
A reviewer for the Washington Post stated that the show was essentially a showcase for Jack White. I thoroughly disagree. Jack White is immensely talented, a fact that is accepted by the entire music community. He plays the drums with a precision and ferocity that is commanding, but not showy. He does not take away from any other member of the band. They are all immensely talented musicians who blend together incredibly well (the whole reason why the band formed so organically in the first place). He leaned into the mic to sing his songs, and duet with Alison Mosshart, but nothing over the top. Towards the end of the show there was a moment of switching around, and Jack White came forward to play the guitar. And it was good. An amazing experience-he really is like few (any) I've ever seen on guitar. His duet with Alison, "Will there be enough water?" is an experiment in sexual tension and the power of the opposite sex in one band.
Dean Fertita and Jack Lawrence, guitar and keyboards, and bass, respectively, are so integral to the process. Without Fertita's rip-roaring guitar, the intensity would not exist in the music. And many of the Dead Weather songs open on bass, and Lawrence's bass lines are always innovative, never tired and boring.
Let me put it simply. The house rocked. My ears didn't stop ringing until about 3 pm the next day. All the favorites off both albums were played, as well as a bit of a surprise-"Rollin in on a Burnin Tire" featured on the Eclipse soundtrack. They are epic, a powerhouse. They are the modern blues, they are an odd grouping of Tim Burton-esque misfits that make the best fit together. Stylish, incredible, incendiary. I will see them every chance I get, and you should, too.
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