Description
Ever since kids with guitars first discovered that the family garage had use beyond holding the old man’s sedan, the racket that has so often emanated from them is considered the epitome of primitiveness. Merely deeming a band’s sound garage rock effectively chains it to a state of perpetual primordiality, welcome or otherwise. But over the decades, garage rock has become much more than blundering stabs at Buddy Holly, the Shadows of Knight and the Ventures. Each consecutive pop culture trend — psychedelia, glam, punk, even disco — has been at one time or another brought into the mix, making garage rock of the 21st century a very complex beast, indeed. Purists will contend that the true nature of garage rock has been diluted, that artistic tunnel vision is the only assurance that the genre will never congest and bloat just like the over-produced hits it was originally opposing. Considering the multitude of back-to-basics 60s rockers who enlisted in the arena-ready brigade of the 70s, these purists may be right, and garage rock now exists as a marketing ploy to help the young forget the wasted rap-metal years. It is fitting, then, that the act heralded as kingpin in the new millennium’s neo-garage movement has gone out of its way to expand and flatly contradict the very ideals on which the scene was built. As a result, the White Stripes are the best modern garage band around, without really being a garage band at all. Rock is dead, long live rock. In 1997, a pasty-faced upholsterer from Detroit named John Gillis recruited his unobtrusive ex-wife Megan White as the drummer for a highly conceptualized yet raw-as-sin guitar-drums duo, and created the White Stripes. Gillis became Jack White, stirred up some old-fashioned titillation by claiming his bandmate to be his sister-lover (who knew there was such a market for hillbilly lust?) and proceeded to paint everything the twosome touched with a peppermint-candy red-and-white palette. Musically speaking, the Stripes are more vibrant than their color scheme will have you believe. Eschewing the necrophilic new wave appeal of the Strokes and the embryonic-Stones fascination of the Hives, Jack has sought musical salvation elsewhere. Building on the groundwork of Delta blues, he adds layer upon layer of less archaic influences: Dylan, for his ruffled genius quality; Iggy, for his appreciation of the beauty in abrasion; Marc Bolan, for his flashy pop precision; Led Zeppelin, for both their crunch and goo. With Meg’s minimalist Moe Tucker-ish timekeeping as a cherry on top — a sometimes sloppy, thudding cherry, but a cherry nonetheless — the Stripes’ melodic routine is a tasty treat. Even from the humble beginnings, greatness was achieved but it would be with their third album, White Blood Cells, in 2001 that the duo would get their breakthrough release. The duo was also proving that they were amont the most exciting bands to catch live as they not only ripped through some sensational tracks from their own albums, they also performed some outstanding covers. This album captures the band at the Kentish Town Forum in London on the 6th of December 2001 and besides some great White Stripe tunes we get a cover of Bob Dylan’s Isis which is an absolute gem. Isis is a favourite track among his fans despite him seldom performing the track live so to hear The White Stripes doing a cover of it was a pure joy. The band did Isis justice and would become a regular number in their set for the whole 2001 tour. This was a bold move for them as its one of the singer’s more obscure tracks which their crowd were unlikely to know but it is the sort of thing Dylan himself would be proud of, as they followed his maxim of playing for yourself first and foremost.
Track list:
1. Disappear
2. I Think I Smell A Rat
3. Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground
4. Sick Of Love
5. Expecting
6. Death Letter
7. Little Room
8. Jolene
9. Im Finding It Hard To Be A Gentlemen
10. Hotel Yarba
11. Isis
12. Were Going To friends
13. Apple Blossom
14. Going Back To Memphis
15. Astro
16. Jack The Ripper
17. Rated X
18. Feeling Goin