written by Razza G.

I’m not sure what ‘dead weather’ is, but if it’s humid and airless then the weather is perfect for this gig at the Enmore. The carpet has never felt stickier, the beer has never been warmer or less refreshing, the crowd never sweatier, the air never swampier.

The staging sets the mood, with deep blue lights and a prog/goth backdrop (brain salad surgery in a boneyard?) They’ve been called a supergroup but there’s a garage quality to them, although these guys have a pretty well-set-up garage. It’s Jack White’s garage, I guess, full of elaborate effects pedals and those custom-built Gretsch guitars he bought around the time he did a Bond tune. All the guitars are white – we all know Jack loves to coordinate – but this is no one-man band. Dean Fertita’s heavy organ riffs are stickier than the carpet, and his guitar tone is gorgeous, while Jack ‘Little Jack’ Lawrence is an amazing bass player. Alison Mosshart gets to play the square Bo Diddley guitar for a bit. Jack White does a great job on drums, his fills and frisky changes never allow the heavy, bluesy feel to settle into sludge.

Some say that as a frontwoman Alison Mosshart is a pastiche of originators such as PJ Harvey or Royal Trux’s Jennifer Herrera, but to me she has her own kind of power. She works the same spectrum of fuzz, scuzz and buzz with her voice that her bandmates achieve with their instruments. She’s theatrical, but she’s not fake. She rocks. The crowd loves her.

About halfway through, the refrain ‘Will There Be Enough Water?‘ seems like a cruel joke. Jack and Alison drip sweat as they share vocals and wring out the last drop of drama. Even the walls are dripping sweat. The song is one of the night’s best, with a haunting Jack White guitar solo backed up by Fertita’s meaty, bassy organ and Little Jack on drums, but it’s also revealing. Alison has such amazing on-stage chemistry with Jamie Hince of the Kills that they seem to share breaths, heartbeats, neurons. But with this band Alison’s real chemistry is with the crowd. And Jack? Well, when he picks up that white Jupiter Thunderbird, it looks a lot like love.