Dead Weather

Sitting in a cafe the other day, reading a local music paper, I noticed that Jack White's latest band, The Dead Weather, were playing The House Of Blues in Boston. So... Janet and I decided we'd best go along and check them out. Of course, we didn't organise tickets beforehand and the gig was sold out by the time we got there. However, while waiting for dinner to arrive I went for a wander outside and managed to score two tickets at a not too inflated price. The guy actually called me over and did the deal over others who were also searching - wearing a Cure t-shirt comes in handy sometimes :)
Anyway..... the House of Blues reminded me instantly of a venue in St Kilda (the Palace comes to mind but I'm not sure of I've got the right place) - open floor in front of the stage and balconies all round the upper levels.
The band finally came on after a long wait with nothing happening. Too late to be fashionably so.
Jack White certainly has a charismatic presence! He seems to be very tall which helps. He plays the drums in this outfit and it was hard to drag the eyes away from him as he sat (and sometimes stood) there flailing away. He drums more in the style of Keith Moon than John Bonham in that sense - arms all over the place, lots of movement, etc.
The band sounded tight but the vocal mix was pretty ordinary. Vocals were shared between Jack and the female singer introduced as "the black hair down there". I didn't think much of her. The guitarist has the chops but he's no soloist. I enjoyed the rhythms the band produced, largely driven by Jack's drums and the bass player. Not too complicated but interesting nonetheless. It's a shame the vocals were so muddy and distorted. Some clarity there would have made this a great gig rather than just a good one.
I did a bit of crowd watching at various times: except for the obligatory moshers down the front there was surprisingly little movement around the place.
Janet started to not feel so good so we left before the end. Probably missed the best bits but I'd seen enough.
They were okay and I'm glad we went, but they didn't make me want to rush out and buy the CD, or a t-shirt.