Album Review
‘Under Blackpool Lights’:
You Now Know Garage Rock! 

By Eamonn Rockwell (May 26, 2005)
 
Released in 2004, the White Stripes DVD of a concert they played in Blackpool, England is amazing. There's no other word under 15 syllables that can describe it. It's essentially 90 minutes of pure garage rock power and noise. The closest thing to it would be a jet engine crashing into a siren factory, except it sounds brilliant instead of horrible. Using only a Sears-brand guitar, some effects pedals and a four-piece drum set, Jack and Meg White create an atomic blast of old-school ROCK AND ROLL turned up loud enough to kill most animals over two tons. The concert starts out with "When I Hear My Name," which is basically an excuse for Jack White to turn his amp to 11 and send a punch of ROCK to your stomach that has the strength of Muhammad Ali in peak physical form. Everything after that is an epic blur of feedback and sustain that will outlast the nuclear waste buried in the Yucca Mountain. Even the slow songs, even though there aren't very many, are still packed with more guitar fuzz than most people can even think about comprehending.

Under normal conditions, a band made up of only a mad genius and his ex-wife's mediocre drumming (not his sister, as he claims) could never have made it in the music business. But with the supposed return of garage rock, the White Stripes were in the perfect position to go from a simple two-member band playing supercharged blues to a monumental powerhouse of rock still consisting of two members who play supercharged blues. The guitar and drum parts for the songs are ridiculously simple, but at the same time, they are impossible to play or master in the precise way that Jack White manages to do.  At some point in his young life, someone must have told Jack White, "No, you can't play supercharged rock n' roll with really cheap guitars and tons of feedback!" And after putting a battleaxe of rock through that person's skull, he must have written out his plan to do just that. Many people will argue that Meg White is a bad drummer, which just isn't true. She isn't a great drummer, but she doesn't need to be a good drummer because all of the songs require simple beats. A better drummer could produce some more creative drum work, but they are not necessary given the style of the songs. Essentially, all you need to do is play as hard and as fast as you can to a sped-up 4/4 beat and crash on the cymbals accordingly, proving that pure skill doesn't necessarily make someone a good drummer.

Back to the music. It's pure genius. Jack White is not necessarily a great soloist, but he is a master of fills. When he isn't singing in that Led Zeppelin-meets-AC/DC way of his, he's filling the empty spaces with either eardrum-shattering chords or crazy fills riddled with some weird effect that I haven't figured out yet. He puts microphones all around the stage in case he is too far away or too full of pure rock spirit to go back to the main microphone. He also has a section of pianos and organs on stage for some of the softer songs, which are still not very soft. "Black Math" takes your head and slams it into a brick wall of noise on every downbeat, except that instead of killing you or causing brain damage, it causes a headache from a massive rock overload. The problem is, that's only the second song on the DVD, so you have to make sure not to pass out from head banging too early into it because you'll miss some dynamite stuff. Their take on "Hello Operator" transforms it from a simple schoolyard song into a shrieking, over-the-top,  garage-rock masterpiece. "Balll and Biscuit" sounds like an old blues song twisted into distorted tidal wave of brilliance that crashes into everything that most people believe music should be. Even when covering a Dolly Parton song, "Jolene," they somehow turn it from a typical country song into a soft, then roaring emotional ballad. They cover Bob Dylan and various other artists and turn every song into an amazing display of pure power.

There's no small way to explain how much this DVD rocks. The only way to find out is to buy it, steal it off the Internet, or find someone who can burn a copy for you. You need to watch this DVD and be amazed at how a band of just drums and guitar can produce such amazing noise. If you are the type of person who doesn't like rock, watching this concert will be a figurative kick to the groin from a Kentucky Derby racehorse. If you are the kind of person who loves rock, then this will still feel like a kick to the groin from a Kentucky Derby racehorse, only instead of coma-inducing pain, you will feel the sweet stinging sensation that can only come from being completely rocked out. Just be sure to crank up your speakers, sit back, and let a mountain of White-Stripes style rock come crashing down on you