Next time I say to a person I'm driving to a gig "Don't worry, they won't be on for ages, no-one turns up when the doors open anyway" the night before a Big Day Out, could one of you guys please jump out of a convenient nearby closet and beat the living shit out of me? Thanking you in advance.
We turned up at about ten past nine, so I don't think we missed a lot of the show, but I have a horrible suspicion that we missed my favourite songs. Even if we didn't – and my memory of the setlist is a bit poor, despite being unwilling to spend a lot of time in the queue for the bar and therefore only having one beer – I didn't necessarily love what was played. There was nothing wrong with the set – the sound was fantastic, the rendition was dramatic and passionate, the lighting and set was striking and distinctive.
But for some reason, this show didn't leave me with the exhausted excitement I remember from, say, The Dictators, The Buzzcocks or even Michael Franti (all of these gigs being several years ago, and in Franti's case ten years ago). Instead of passionate love, all I felt was cold respect. And yet, now that I've come home and I'm listening to Get Behind Me Satan, I'm enjoying it as much as ever, and my favourite Stripes songs are an inspiration.
I am painfully aware that I am very old and haven't been to (or cared about) a rock gig in quite some time. Even so, surely well-executed music, interestingly presented (they had a bit of a leitmotif going with Meg's "Passive Manipulation", as well as some bitchin' blues stylings from Jack) should, if not give me a raging hard-on, at least raise my heart-rate a little?
There are mitigating factors – as Jack pointed out in a very rare bit of between song banter, "it's so hot I can't even breathe" – but I'm afraid I just can't regard the White Stripes as a "live" band. I'm just gonna sit here and bop away to "Take, Take, Take".
"It's almost as if she did not appreciate how cool I was bein'..."
In other news, my 7-year-old niece is getting into the blues and Acca Dacca, so my evil plan is coming along nicely MWAH-HAH-HAAAHHH!!!
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