The Dead Weather Brings Rock Heaven to Earth

© Steve Hopson / RumBum.com

The Dead Weather at ACL

Oh, the drama! The rapture! The masterpiece! Swooning were the masses at the LiveStrong stage at ACL on Sunday evening. The hour was 6:00 o’clock. The sun crept below the trees confining the park. The crowd waited, waited, waited, for The Dead Weather to bring forth rock hysteria and grandeur in the form of Jack White (The White Stripes, Raconteurs), Alison Mosshart (The Kills), Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age), and Jack Lawrence (The Raconteurs) – a ferocious foursome for whom the term “supergroup” is an understatement. 

Mosshart spares nothing in her delivery. The entire hour she was belting out badass lyrics and perusing the stage like a sassy, seductive cabaret funk rocker with those violent locks perfect for whiplashing head bangs. Her gold cowboy boots were made for pacing, sulking, pouting, and, yes, walking – specifically, all over the stage monitors – and sometimes with her white lacquer rectangular electric guitar.  The drama never waned as she jerked and jolted her way to each corner of the stage, scanned the crowd with her seemingly vacant eyes, and even smoked a cigarette in front of Jack White’s drum set.

Yes! Jack White! On drums! His drum set (with bass drum adorned with an I-see-dead-people-looking trio of children) was pushed back on stage and hard to see if you could only manage a spot on the wings, but sure enough there he was smashing out intricate, driving rock beats – a far cry from the simplistic drum of The White Stripes. When Jack finally made an appearance at the mic for “You Just Can’t Win,” the mud covered crowd went so bozo you’d think they were just there to see him. Whether or not that was the case, hearing Jack White in bits and pieces is such a tease that you’re left savoring every morsel and wanting more. The Dead Weather brings out a genuine White, wringing the best from all these rock spirits and mastering a sound that’s electric, hypnotic, and chaotic.  

The bossy and Freudian-sounding “Treat Me Like Your Mother” riddled the stage with riffs, drums, and vocals by Mosshart and White (almost like the duo did in the music video, except they were using bullets). The barely synthed and slightly spastic “Hang You From the Heavens” kept the crowd captivated, and the driving drumline plus haunting vocals (“there’s a bullet in my pocket burning a hole”) of “So Far From Your Weapon” instilled the fans with the urge to rock right along with them from their spot in the mucky grass.

With only 36 words in the whole 6-and-a-half-minute finale of “Will There Be Enough Water,” the lyrically condensed craft was as entrancing as it was gritty and played host to a maniacal guitar solo by White, who seemed to simply get lost in the sound. Once he came to and returned to the mic with Mosshart, the masses were immersed in the breathy duo drew out, “Cool water ….and cool wind.”

» Gallery