“Your southern can belongs to me”

SWMNBN and I are just back from the White Stripes gig. It was excellent.

The Rivoli Ballroom is fantastic: one of the few remaining dance halls from the ’50s (looks like this but tonight saw fewer kilts). It only holds about 1000 people, and was a warm-up gig for the Stripes’ festival appearances. The only bad thing is that it’s in south-east London, the very opposite of where we live on the west side, so it took a 90-minute trip of 3 tube journeys plus a bus each way.

The vibe in place was great, very positive. Everyone was happy to see the band in such an intimate venue. We caught the last few songs of the opening guy, some bluesy acoustic fella who sounded okay.

Jack and Meg played a very good no-frills set. They sampled songs from across their albums, and didn’t focus too much on next week’s Icky Thump: I think all we got was the title track (which is blistering live), “I’m Slowly Turning Into You”, “Catch Hell Blues”, and “Effect & Cause”. The rest of the highlights are predictable: “Hotel Yorba”, “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground”, “Seven Nation Army”, “Ball and Biscuit”, and “Jolene”.

How do two people create such an awesome, unholy noise?

And it looks like they even played an afternoon gig for some of the Chelsea Pensioners for whom tonight’s show was a benefit.