White Stripes.....kilts..pipers!

[cloves]

So just a few days ago the band The White Stripes played here in my little teeny, tiny town of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.
Awesome show by the way.
I'm usually into music that is a bit more slick and produced as opposed to something (what i thought) was so minimalistic and raw. However, i've since changed my mind about the band. For two people they put on a heck of a show. In fact, during most of their travels across Canada on this tour, they've not only played their main gig, but also put on a bunch of secret shows. Because of this, I've been following the news surrounding them......check out what I missed the day they were in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Even more reason to love them I think!



pretty cool huh? Piped into a huge historic fort....then they got to fire a cannon. Nice tartans too....I wonder if they are generic fashion tartans or something they designed and had made??
As an aside, I think Jack's black jacket, black shirt and string tie look good as well.

[Yaish]

The White Stripes are a pretty cool new band. They have a sound that is unmistakable, yet none of their songs sound the same.
I cant stand most of what passes for 'rock' today but I find myself enjoying their songs.

[cloves]

the thing is...they've been around for 10 years now!! who knew?!

I think i'm getting old...time is just flying by lately.

[Tattoo Bradley]

Is that not the Prince of Wales tartan he's wearing? I'll have to go check. But, at first glance it looks like it.


**
I checked. It's pretty close, but the stripes are a bit different.

[McMurdo]

Cool picture, I thought it was the Prince of Wales right off too Brad.

[McClef]

I thought so too, the sett looks right though the colours are not very good in the photo.

[Big Paul]

Very cool!

[Archangel]

You know, it's funny, they played here in London and my daughter and I went to see them. We like the Stripes, we have their albums. I, we, like minimal raw music and we're not elitist. Mudmen are my favourite live band right after the Rolling Stones. The Sadies and Stray Cats are my other favourite bands. However, we walked out an hour into the show. It was boring, really boring. That was the best seats I've had at that stadium and the sound was pretty good, for once.

I wished I'd caught their mini secret concert, I think that's about how much material they have.

That's us, hope the down east concert rocked, they were back "home", weren't they?

[cloves]

yeah apparently they have "family" in Nova Scotia. Whatever that means.

So wait a minute...you like the Stripes but walked out? Wow.....I didn't much care for them beofer the show, but having seen them have a whole new respect.
I couldn't beleive that much noise/energy/power was put out by just two people. I expected it to be really uhm....garagey...shoe gazery.....I dunno...something less. But what I got was Jack all over the stage, playing guitar and keys at the same time, Meg (akward and unbalanced behind her drum kit as she is) just pounding her drums, to the point of having to have a roadie come fix her pedal mid song. Awesome lights and stage set up.
The secret shows to my knowledge have only typically been about 5 or six songs long. Here in town they played for a solid hour. Left, then got the encore to come back and play for about another 20 plus minutes.
The crowd was totally into it...loads of fist pumping and singing along.
I had a fantastic time.
Maybe that's why, because I wasn't expecting anything, there was no way to be let down.

Oh, and I wasn't being elitest by my "raw and minimalistic" comment. Or at least I wasn't trying to be. I apologize if that's the way I came off. I've worked in a record store for the last twelve years....and if there's anything I've learned in that time it's that ALL music has merit.
I just wanted to state that the music I find myself drawn to lately has been really produced.

[Archangel]

No, I didn't think for a minute you were being elitist. I was trying to avoid that appearance about myself. I'm quite surprised that they didn't work for me. A couple of years ago, when the record companies first starting complaining, I realized that I had bought only one real factory cd all year, and that was the Stripes. All the other cds bought that year, had been bar band, low budget stuff. I like to see what people do, how they perform, especially when things go bad. I realized that I strongly disagree with Spector on this.
I liked the red back drop and the "noir" effect of the shadows on it especially when Meg did her song. But it got old quickly.

Like I said, we were up for it, great seats, good sound, a band we like. It just didn't work for us. I can't figure it out either.

But I'm glad they're doing well and they way they are touring is opening a lot of eyes to Canada, so that's cool.