Shaun
While mindlessly scrolling the internet gets a lot of bad press, you do occasionally come across something worthwhile. In this case, it was news that the mighty Jack White doing a low-key tour to promote his new album, with one of the three dates being at Chalk in Brighton. I set my alarms and tickets were purchased for a large (not Oasis large but minor celeb at a small venue large) fee.
Support was a band called Triage. They were female-fronted and came over like a cross between Sonic Youth, Joy Division and Tricky. Lots of discordant guitar, dubby bass lines and shouty vocals. They took a while to get going and by the end of the set, they were coming together. Maybe get another guitar if you are going to swap tunings between songs.
Then, after the smartest-dressed roadies had done their stuff, the band hit the stage. A mess of hair, leather jackets and rock and roll attitude they went straight into their two-hour set. It was a mix of solo stuff and material from his various other bands. Of course, it was the White Stripes stuff that got the biggest reactions of the night. There was a Hotel Yorba a few songs in and a Seven Nation Army as the final song.
While he is famous for his guitar, Jack White isn’t really a “noodler” in the rock or jazz sense of the word. He will play a verse, a chorus and then really just scratch his guitar neck for a few bars. It’s not like the old days when songs had a 5-minute guitar solos in the middle. He was strictly in, out and onto the next number. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any covers that night. At Islington a few days earlier he chucked in a handful of old blues songs.
The great thing about Chalk is that, even in its expanded form, it’s not huge. You could see him quite clearly wherever you stood and it was obvious he was having as great a time as the audience.
