Gig review: The Dead Weather, Picture House

Published on Friday 23 October 2009 10:13

HALLOWEEN came early to the Capital in the gothic form of The Dead Weather. The supergroup, consisting of Jack White, Alison Mosshart, Dean Ferita and Jack Lawrence, brought their dark materials to the Picture House and it was just the thing to cheer up a dismal October evening.

After the support act, the B-movie-inspired Creature With The Atom Brain, had loosened a few fillings with their powerful thrumming and strumming, it was time for the main event and the cloak of mist pumped out across the auditorium hinted at the atmosphere to come.

The band kicked off with a pair of gutsy pure rock numbers, Forever My Queen and Heaven, blinding the crowd with copious strobe through the haze and with Alison Mosshart tearing into the lyrics of bleakness and despair with her Joplinesque voice.

Clearly, most of the crowd were there to see the White Stripes main man and after the opening numbers he took the vocal duties on the bluesy You Just Can't Win. White hasn't got the traditional rock star's growl and snarl but his more plaintive tones were perfect for a song like this which, although it did bust out into guitar licks and heavy bass, was less about the thunder and more about rain.

The biggest cheers of the evening may have been for White but the star of the show was Mosshart. With her petite frame, it would be easy to refer to her as bird-like, but only if the bird you meant was a very ill-tempered raven ready to take your fingers off if you tried to feed it. She perched on the monitors and strutted across the stage, fell to the ground, leapt up and hung on to the edge of the stage, balancing with the very edge of her five-inch stacked heels. All the time, she was able to control her powerful vocals and wring every ounce of pain, bitterness and bile out of each line.

There was only one negative to the evening which was, as it often is at gigs, the vocal mix on the songs. Both The Dead Weather and their support suffered from the fuzzy mike sound which meant that however strong or thought provoking the lyrics may have been, the crowd got to hear less than 50 per cent of them.

Pale of face and black of clothes, these children of the night certainly bewitched the Picture House audience last night and they were as tight a group of musicians as you would wish to see, with White proving surprisingly impressive behind the drum kit. Ferita and Lawrence didn't have anything to prove as musicians but they proved it anyway and Mosshart was exquisite and a little scary as she commanded the room with her intense vocals.

Edinburgh is supposed to be the world's most haunted city but no matter what ghosts and ghouls walk the street on the 31st, they're unlikely to be quite as thrilling as this show.

Your review: 'The music's black tone was great'

Gregor Fergie, 39, charity worker, Gorgie: "I thought it was great, the music was powerful and the energy levels were fantastic, particularly from Mosshart. I could have done without the constant use of the strobe lights, which seemed to be all the lighting guy had brought with him for the show. I wasn't hugely aware of The Dead Weather but they seemed to gel really well and the playing was really together. I wasn't too impressed with the support band – they were far too obviously influenced by Nirvana."

Colin Deacon, 32, sports shop manager, Meadowbank: "I enjoyed it even more than I hoped I would. I'm aware of White Stripes but I'd never really heard much of the other band members' stuff so I wasn't sure what the sound was going to be like, but I thought the blacker than black tone of the music was great. I think some in the crowd might have been expecting this to be more of a Jack White gig but I think the fact that he let someone else take centre stage shows real class on his part."