aaamusic | On 25, Apr 2012

London, 23rd April

So it finally happened. Since splitting up the 21st century’s best rock band, Jack White took something of a backseat in the public eye, retreating into his vanity label Third Man Records to put out albums from the likes of Wanda Jackson, Alabama Shakes, Tom Jones and an abundance of others. That restless desire to create and innovate of his would not stay dormant for long however, and two long years after the last album he recorded and toured, 2010’s Sea Of Cowards by The Dead Weather, Jack has finally released something under his own name. Blunderbuss is a record with numerous reasons to sing it’s praises, not least that it systematically proves that one can work with Insane Clown Posse and be taken dead seriously afterwards but mostly because, once more, it is a total departure for Jack. It’s the first time that he’s properly opened up on record, with deeply personal songs mainly drawn from his loss of two of the women closest to him in his life, White Stripes band-mate Meg White, whom he split from in February last year and his now ex-wife Karen Elson, who he divorced only a couple of months later. On the day of the records release he took to the stage at a venue he’s well familiar with by now, the HMV Forum in Kentish town, and proceeded to do what he does best, tear it a new one by the sheer forces of passion, energy, great songs and volume. Lots, and lots of volume.
Much has been made of his decision to tour with two bands, one all-female (The Peacocks)and one all-male (Los Buzzardos), but tonight he performs exclusively with the former and I was not kidding before, the guys will have to try very, very hard to top these girls for loudness. It’s astonishing, even compared to Jack’s other bands. They can stand toe to toe with The Dead Weather at their most primal, The Stripes at their most frantic, and The Raconteurs at their heaviest. Sweeping onstage ten minutes after their allotted stage time (the rascal) each of them take their places, pound out a wall of noise and, in a move that takes the vast majority of the audience completely unawares, launches into one of the best loved songs in his entire back catalogue, White Stripes classic Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground. The whole venue was already rapt with anticipation, filling at a rate I’ve rarely seen before at any gig, and that move alone pays off the five hour wait that some people (I.E, me and two others) have had in preparation for this gig. From then, Jack can do no wrong, when he isn’t playing his dark, seductive, intense new songs he’s dipping into his back catalogue and causing a lifetimes worth of fangasms in an hour and a half. The Raconteurs are represented by an inspired dark country rendition of Top Yourself and Carolina Drama, one of Jacks finest lyrical moments. The Dead Weather are only represented once, by a swinging slice through Sea of Cowards opener Blue Blood Blues but The Stripes songs will always be the ones fans latch onto.
Astonishingly huge, full band treatments of We’re Going To Be Friends, Hotel Yorba, My Doorbell, a monumental run through of fan favourite I’m Slowly Turning Into You and Ball And Biscuit all send the baying crowd mental but in many ways tonight is all about the new songs, and what new songs they are. Just under half of Blunderbuss gets an airing, the singles, serrated riff-slayer Sixteen Saltines and a plutonium powered version of Love Interruption that is almost unrecognisable from the recorded version for its heaviness, get the loudest reception but the most riveting performances come from the subtler moments that grow into intense beasts rather too large for the (relatively) intimate surroundings. Freedom at 21 pounces out the gate after the opening of Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground and does an astonishingly good job of following it, but the crowing jewel is Take Me With You When You Go, which mutates from a piano led, fifties barroom jam into a monstrously heavy freakout which nearly overshadows the nights closer for intensity.
Nearly. Said closer is the deathless Seven Nation Army, and while one could make the point that it slightly undermines the fact that White is promoting a brand new solo album under his own name to close his shows with it, I would personally tell them to shut up and enjoy the fact that Jack Fucking White is playing one of the 21st centuries best singles with a full band a couple of yards in front of them. It’s an astonishing sight and a perfect way to end one of the single greatest live concerts I have ever been to. And we all get to do it again this coming June. If you haven’t got yourself a ticket, and you have the slightest passing interest in what Jack White does for a living, for the sake of everything you believe in get one. There is no possible way you could regret it.

★★★★★

Will Howard