The White Stripes: Madison Square Garden 24/7/07

Any lingering sign of jetlag was blown out of my system last night by Jack White and his so-called sister Meg. We gingerly strolled five minutes down the road to Madison Square Garden to watch them. Being a two member band with Jack on guitar and Meg on drums and trying to entertain a capacity Madison Square Garden sounded like a pretty mean feat, but the White Stripes did it with complete ease. Infact, they held the crowd in the palm of their hands. I’ve seen many arena concerts in my time and I can tell you they outperformed bands with two or three times as many members.

I first saw them a few years ago at the Big Day Out in Sydney. They were pretty unknown and on a small stage. I thought they were brilliant….so much so that I wanted to take their schtick and find myself a cool female drummer and form a two-piece band of my own.  That never eventuated of course. Not enough female drummers in Sydney I guess….either that or my sucky guitar playing could never sustain a two-piece band.  Alot of the crowd didn’t know how to take The White Stripes back then. There were one or two raised middle fingers in the air. How times have changed. Rolling Stone just voted them one of the best live bands around and the crowd last night couldn’t get enough.

And boy, that Jack White kat can sure weild an axe! With no bassplayer, you gotta make your guitar playing more interesting and Jack made you forget bassplayers even existed with his sloppy, boppy, super schlocky guitar rocky.

Kudos to Trinh, who didn’t know 98% of their stuff, but still got into the vibe of the night and swung the hips to many tunes. She gave nice big grin of recognition when they finally played their most well-known song, “Seven Nation Army” or as Trinh calls it, “That Witchita Song”. There was much rejoicing.

-Posted by Adam