White Stripes

Whether an evening of live music can be compared to any one of Bob Dylan's albums is impossible to say. Still, if we want to indulge in that pleasant but pointless rock game of "what if", the Rome show by White Stripes would take us back to 1965's "Bringing It All Back Home". And the fact that it's precisely the cover of "Outlaw Blues" that opens up into the primal, furious riff of "Black Math" has little or nothing to do with it.

Detroit's step-siblings/ex-spouses are musically "bringing it all back home," to that "garage" from which everything started almost a decade ago. And it's a particularly strange feeling, given the usual promotional hype surrounding the new tour.

After all, it was organized to showcase a preview of the new album "Icky Thump".

After all, Jack and Meg no longer wear red and white outfits, but, judging by the posters plastered around Rome, they now look more like characters out of a Lewis Carroll story.

Yet you only need to listen to Jack White's own words to understand that, perhaps, the dazed experimentation of "Get Behind Me Satan" was just a parenthesis. "I think 'Icky Thump' will appeal especially to fans of our first album, maybe because it harks back to powerful hard-rock sounds." And why shouldn't he be right? The title track, in fact, grinds out a riff with a seventies flavor ready to conquer MTV just like "The Hardest Button To Button".

So, what better way to walk out in front of the crowd at the hideous Teatro Tendastrisce than with the jerky, sinister tribalism of "When I Hear My Name"?

Jack White appears on stage with his usual air of a Tim Burton actor wannabe and, surprise, he's dressed entirely in red. Meg kicks off the rhythm like a fuller-bodied Moe Tucker, and a shower of white polka dots rains down on "Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground".

Watching the already galvanized crowd, it becomes fairly clear which way the concert's backward journey will go, despite Jack's attempt to rouse the audience with the new "Effect And Cause", which smells more of a fifties ballad than seventies hard-rock.

The White Stripes may be a duo, but what actually reaches the ears is, in every sense, a "one-man show" by a wild guitarist armed to the teeth with pedals and effects. That's why, after the raucous country of "Hotel Yorba", Jack White conjures up a sort of "mini hard-blues festival". His guitar shifts skin perfectly, weeping slide tears on "Suzy Lee" one moment, then vibrating with energy through the reworking of Son House's "Death Letter" the next. A kid stands there open-mouthed: "This guy can really play." Who knows if he ever realized that bassline is actually a guitar.

In the end, it was predictable that there would be plenty of White Stripes followers born on July 9th standing there, phone in hand, waiting for "that" song. Less predictable, though, was that they'd instantly recognize the shy intro of the cover of Dolly Parton's "Jolene", followed by an authentic sonic explosion through the blues improvisations of the masterful "Ball And Biscuit" and the Zeppelin-esque riff of "Why Can't You Be Nicer To Me?".

Strobe lights sweep across the whole theatre as the Whites dust off tracks that had perhaps been buried by the worldwide success of "Elephant". So we go back to savoring the fifties flavor of "Wasting My Time", tapping our feet to the martial "Astro", or singing along to the sweet folk refrain of "We're Going To Be Friends". Meg also gets her moment in the spotlight: unexpectedly sexy and languid, she weaves the hypnotic patterns of "In The Cold Cold Night" and "Passive Manipulation". The "classic" calm before the storm.

Jack goes back to his role as a creature half Jimi Hendrix, half Jon Spencer, and sounds the charge. "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself" thus becomes more aggressive, paving the way for the thunderous riff of "Jack The Ripper" and the disco frenzy of "Blue Orchid".

On the final chord, the White Stripes wave goodbye and leave the stage, steeped in their own obsessive two-tone color scheme.

Naturally, the overall reaction is one of outrage. "That" song is missing. Maybe I'm the strange one, since all I'm thinking is that they only played for an hour and fifteen minutes. But there's no rock concert without an encore, especially this one, and especially for the "world champions".

The moment the bass-guitar line of "that" song kicks in, the entire Tendastrisce crowd turns into the Curva Sud of the Stadio Olimpico.

By now nothing else matters. People dance to the country stornello of "As Ugly As I Seem" and belt out the traditional "Boll Weevil" at the top of their lungs. This time it's truly over. Step-siblings/ex-spouses Jack and Meg White embrace and take a bow. Thunderous applause accompanies the close of an intense, all-out concert.

Too bad that, live, the two of them are about as generous as Shakespeare's Shylock.

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