Wednesday 31/08/05 The White Stripes @ Auditorium Theater, Chicago

Playing to less people than one could count on two hands and opening with 'Let’s Shake Hands', the performance was so inspiring that it propelled this correspondent to the local karaoke bar, post-gig, to unleash a blood-curdling rendition of New Radicals’ 'You Get What You Give'.

 

Half a decade later and the world is at Jack and Meg’s feet.  The last of a three-night stand at Chicago’s legendary Auditorium Theater (est. 1889).  Things couldn’t be better for the White Stripes …or could they?  Witness the fate of their Detroit peers.  Eminem is in rehab and the best the Von Bondies can do is to soundtrack porn for Michael Winterbottom’s lurid “9 Songs.”  'Get Behind Me Satan' hasn’t exactly yielded a 7 Nation Army caliber single yet either.  The Motor City has seen better days, hasn’t it, Jack?

 

Adorned in black cloak and sinister voodoo hat, Jack stalks the stage to great effect for the first three songs – 'Blue Orchid', 'The Nurse', and 'My Doorbell'.  He comes across like a hybrid of late 90’s underground comic book antihero, Chakan, the Forever Man and that ghastly old buzzard from Poltergeist 2: The Other Side.  And when Jack coaxes the marimbas for 'The Nurse', Gigwise, from his seat on floor five, row V, honorary Liverpudlian that he is, cannot help but sing the opening line to Space’s 'Female of the Species'.

 

Strong start, then, but oh what a ponderous midsection, enlivened only by the thought of Loretta Lynn performing a burlesque striptease to 'I’m Lonely (But I Ain’t That Lonely Yet)'.  The middle third is made worse by the quartet of meatheads in row U (two out of four wearing baseball caps – have you not heard 'Time for Heroes', gents?  That baseball cap line doesn’t just apply to “Englishmen.”) who arrived at the start and neglected to sit for the rest of the show, not even for Jack’s numerous intimate piano dalliances – think Axl Rose when he got all soft for 'November Rain'. 

 

Gigwise stands firm.  Laughing in the face of our former employers and their overpriced teacups of watery beer, we gargle from a flask – nay, an entire bottle – of Mad Dog 20/20, “Grape Wine with Citrus Spirits,” 13% alc/vol, the Banana Red flavor.  After all, not one of our inept replacements, all of whom, incidentally, now resemble janitors – wherefore art thou bowtie and vest, mes amis? – not one of them bothered to show us to our seat – they didn’t even tear our tickets.  So here’s a tip for when Art Garfunkel or Snoop Dogg come to this place:  show up early, brush right past, take a seat toward the back and no one will know the better.  You’re definitely set to see the support act, gratis.  This time it was Brendan Benson, still peddling his brand of agreeable fodder from a bygone AM radio.  Not familiar with the new release but 'Tiny Spark' sounds so much better on record.  Tonight was a golden opportunity for Jack to drag Brendan out from behind Meg’s timpani – the stage looked like the nightclub scene in Jim Carrey’s The Mask as imagined by a Nazi set designer – to team up and give us the world debut of material from their forthcoming side project, The Raconteurs, but did that happen?  Not sure.  Doubtful.  We left after '7 Nation Army'.  We had a train to catch.