When Moggers Help Other Moggers: The Dead Weather, Terminal 5, 7/16/09

Picture from http://happygeniusheroes.blogspot.com/2009/07/dead-weather-w-screaming-females.html

When I heard that Jack White's new band The Dead Weather were going to be in town again I was disappointed because at the time I was a broke puppy with barely $5 to my name. Then, on Wednesday I got an unexpected call from fellow mogger Neil Nathan asking if I would be interested in going to the concert (for free!) because neither he nor his intern was able to make it. Well...how could I resist? The only stipulation was that I was to go and pick up some flyers and promote his song which he did with The Dead Weather guitarist Dean Fertita. Needless to say, I took his deal and went tonight to the show with my girlfriend.

Well, the openers, The Screaming Females from New Brunswick came out at 9:15 and they were alright. They consisted of a power trio combining a pop punk sound with some refined guitar chops and lots of feedback / noise. A lot of their songs stayed in the mid tempo range and was structured similarly: verse chorus verse chorus solo solo chorus coda. It was agonizingly predictable but got a lot of heads bobbing and booties shaking and proved to pump up the crowd. The oddest one of the trio was the singer / guitarist who kept shrieking as though in a hardcore band which lead into her blistering solos that honed in straight from 1987.

At 10:30 the lights dimmed and The Dead Weather took the stage to an old blues song - a homage to the past and immediately the distorted fuzzy guitar of "60 Feet Tall" took over where the early blues left off signaling a return to the 21st century. For the next hour, the band ran through just about every song on their new LP Horehound which just hit the shelves this past Tuesday. My girlfriend aptly described their music as like "watching two snakes fuck while they shed their skin" and I simply cannot think of a better way to sum of the sound of the band. One of the most impressive aspect of the band is the sheer versatility of the instrumentalists - not one member played a single instrument throughout the whole set and in each song there was a fresh restart as though the whole band had been changed. The dynamics showed throughout with each new song selected keeping the members in constant tension with each other.

Mosshart sleazed and slinked her way around the stage sometimes picking up a guitar, sometimes smoking a cig, sometimes holding herself overtop the crowd in true rock queen fashion. White resigned himself to the drums half the time sometimes trading sticks for a microphone (or singing and playing drums at the same time) or a guitar with a signature uber-overdrive bombast. There was always a sexual tension between the two of them which climaxed at the last song of the set before the encores "Will There Be Enough Water" which saw both of them sharing a microphone practically making out with each other between screechy guitar solos a'la Jacky-boy.

For the majority of the set the two without the spotlight, Jack Lawrence and Dean Fertita sat in the background of the two major personalities of White and Mosshart content to just add flavor to the two egos. Lawrence kept to his bassing duties for most of the set aside for the "Will There Be Enough Water" when he took over the drum set while White was distracted with Mosshart at the mic. Dean Fertita kept to his corner of the stage mingling between the array of instruments - organ, guitar, synth, etc. Both these members kinda took an animated pose onstage only moving slightly from their original positions to change instrument.

Highlights of the set include "So Far From Your Weapon," "Treat Me Like Your Mother," and the two closing encore songs "Hang You From the Heaven," and the Dylan cover "New Pony."

Thanks again to Neil Nathan for his generosity allowing me to experience this concert!