White Stripes Canada Reviews

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Saddledome, Calgary - June 29, 2007

By TARA MERRIN -- Sun Media

Move over Barenaked Ladies. Take a back seat The Tragically Hip.

The White Stripes could very well become Canada’s new “it†band.

They’ve already got the colours down (everything from their clothes to the fabric wrapped around their microphones is red and white), they don’t take themselves too seriously and, by all indications, they are as down to Earth and humble as we Canadians like to think we are.

Then there’s that little thing about them playing in every province in Canada to celebrate their 10-year anniversary as a band and those small impromptu gigs (recently they performed a free show at a youth centre in Burnaby and jammed with Inuit elders and ate raw caribou in Iqaluit) which have earned them several new fans throughout the country.

But most of all, it’s their spellbinding live show which truly makes The White Stripes endearing.

Last night’s concert at the Saddledome, the Alberta stop on the Detroit-bred duo’s Icky Thump tour, was proof of that.

Before we begin, let’s set the record straight — Jack and Meg White are not siblings.

Despite repeated efforts to convince the public otherwise, the pair was married in 1996, at which time Jack took Meg’s last name.

While they have since divorced, they remain great friends and close band mates.

OK.

Now on with the show.

Following a 45-minute set from opener Alabama rockabilly singer Dan Sartain and a quick set change, The Stripes simply walked out on stage, Meg taking her place at the drum kit, and Jack, with guitar in hand, behind one of the four mics.

Wearing the band’s aforementioned colours from head to toe, the blues-rock duo got things off the ground with a one-two punch of Fell in Love With a Girl and Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground.

They followed with the new hard-rock single Icky Thump, which spun the mosh pit into full swing for a punked out version of Dolly’s Parton’s Jolene.

One of the early crowd favourites came when Jack broke into Hotel Yorba, a song he dedicated to “all the cowboys out here in Calgary.â€

The set consisted of a good mix of new and old tracks, highlighted by Cold Cold Night, one of the few numbers in which Meg sings solo.

Throughout the 100-minute show, which featured a simple screen flashing silhouettes of Meg’s drumming and visuals of white blood cells, the pair’s chemistry was apparent.

It was, however, more like a brother and sister than former spouses, as they constantly egged one other on while trying to outplay each other on their respective instruments.

The only letdown in an otherwise solid night was the show’s monotony.

While one can respect The White Stripes for keeping their stage performance simple, with a lack of projected visuals and laser lights, there wasn’t quite enough going on to keep the crowd’s attention.

White’s amazing guitar playing and his improved stage presence, which saw him cruising all over the two-tiered stage, did help.

And the fact both members of The Stripes seemed truly thrilled to be playing in front of only 7,500 fans on a rainy June night in Calgary, made up for the rest.

[boiler]

The White Stripes are putting Glace Bay on the map. What's the family connection of Jack to Glace Bay, anyone know? I just read Jack is a distant relative to Asley McIssac and Natalie McMaster. Weird.

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Ashley MacIssac is opening the show there as a result. Damn nepotism.

[MK]

White Stripes Play Secret Concert (8:20 p.m.)

Duo Rock Out Youth Centre

Sandra Sperounes, edmontonjournal.com

Published: Saturday, June 30, 2007

The White Stripes did it again.

Hours before their main set at the Shaw Conference Centre, Jack and Meg White played a secret show at a youth drop-in centre on Saturday afternoon.

The duo have performed free gigs on almost every stop of their Canadian tour, including Whitehorse, Yellowknife and Calgary.

About 150 cheering fans, and a few children, crammed into a room at the R. W. Tegler Youth Centre in northeast Edmonton.

The venue, located on 118th Ave., features one of Alberta1s largest indoor skate parks and a climbing wall.

"I don't know much about this place," said Jack, clad in red and standing on a small stage in front of a lime-green wall. "Someone told me this is where Wayne Gretzky learned how to skateboard."

The White Stripes played six of their scruffy blues-punk songs, including Screwdriver, Black Jack Davey, You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do What You're Told) and Ball and Biscuit.

"I thought it was awesome," said Sydney Condrotte, 8.

She sat near the front of the stage, taking a few photos of Meg and her drums.

At the end of the 25-minute set, Jack bent over and gave his guitar pick to Sydney, who looked a little perplexed by the gift.

She wasn't quite sure what she was going to do with the valuable memento, which was embossed with Jack's favourite number - three.

"I don1t know," she shrugged. "You've got to put it somewhere safe," said her mom, Tracy Condrotte, who

heard about the gig on Sonic 102.9 FM.

The modern-rock station leaked the news around 2:45 p.m. The White Stripes were supposed to get on stage at 3:15 p.m., but were about 20 minutes late.

Other fans, such as Daryl-Anne Fletcher and her husband, found out about the show from an online messageboard.

They also saw the Stripes in Burnaby, B.C., Calgary and are driving to Saskatoon for Jack and Meg's Canada Day show.

"I love them, their music, the way they play," gushed Daryl-Anne, who was resplendent in red sandals, shorts, T-shirt, not to mention the guitar tattoed on the back of one of her legs.

"They don't need all this fancy-schmancy stuff. They're real. They're doing it all for their fans."

Rumours of a secret show started swirling on Friday. Word was The White Stripes were going to perform in Churchill Square. The downtown and Strathcona branch libraries were also possibilities.

One of the duo's crew members first e-mailed the manager of the R.W. Tegler Youth Centre on Thursday.

"I thought it was a joke at first," laughed Devin Komarniski.

"I called him up and I was like, 'Wow, this guy sounds legit.' I didn't hear back from him until late Friday and they didn't give us absolute confirmation until a few hours before the show. They didn't want too many

people showing up."

The youth centre, which is run by the Hope Mission, caters to children from lower-income families. As many as 80 boys and girls drop in on weekends.

Komarniski hopes the secret show will increase exposure for the drop-in centre.

"We've never had an event of this magnitude here," he said.

If you have pictures of the secret show, please send them to pix@thejournal.canwest.com.

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review written by a guy named Fish. Weird.

Conference Centre, Edmonton - June 30, 2007

White Stripes daring and brazen

By FISH GRIWKOWSKY -- Special to Sun Media

EDMONTON - There's a vast canyon dividing classiness and elitism; another separating polished esthetics and pompous trappings. Thanks to their specific and ever-adhered-to art-school, fascist colour scheme, it'd be easy to guess the White Stripes just might be snobs. A pair, perhaps, simply too untouchably cool to please an everyman crowd like the one sardined into the Shaw Saturday night. Well ...

Then you hear Jack White's voice go utterly raw on Icky Thump, a gritty freakout if not entirely new in the history of rock and roll, at least standing in defiance of the abysmally sulky state of mainstream radio rock in this look-at-me decade, the Nothings.

GREAT SINGERS

White, simply put, can sing better than pretty much everyone else and their Vocoders. When this idea is stacked onto the fact he's managed to make even the most razed and strip-mined blues formulas sound like they're his invention and only 20 minutes old, it's almost unfair to everyone else.

As his work with Loretta Lynn and his ongoing and demonstrably pleasant relationship with his ex-wife Meg prove he's a total gentleman transplanted somehow into the body of one of the most important living musicians.

So while it's true that, say, NoMeansNo technically outrocks the White Stripes, that White is quite often just standing still and strumming instead of leaping around, no one is actually complaining.

I love this band, as I have since first contact when I completely accidentally stumbled ignorant upon them playing a sparsely attended record-store performance in San Francisco most of a decade ago. Like then, White was in red, conversational, calm and serious when the music didn't require him to hit the notes Robert Plant first kicked apart anthills with. He is smartly dressed to look evil with a heart of gold, as the kids at the local drop-in centre free concert will all tell you.

And then there's Meg, with that small little head making concentration faces behind the peppermint/button drums. Not once was the crowd happier than when she came up front and sang In the Cold, Cold Night, immediately and cleverly followed by Jack covering her Passive Manipulation, which goes, "Women, listen to your mothers - don't just succumb to the wishes of your fathers. Take a step back, take a look at one another, you need to know the difference between a father and a mother."

Exposed under just a single dancehall disco ball with oddly domestic lyrics like these milking forever that strange dead romance which even Saturday still had Jack addressing Meg as "my sister," the reason this duo is so popular is that every step they take is daring and brazen.

They leap mountaintops in the fog and it always pays off. Why else would such a sweet little song like I Can Tell That We Are Gonna Be Friends touch so many hard hearts in the age of casual porno? There's just so much unspoken interaction in their faces - it's magic.

MAGIC INTERACTION

"This is working out, isn't it Meg?" Jack smiled Saturday night, as if he just realized this after a decade.

Little Ghost, Dead Leaves in the Dirty Ground for an opener, the set was about average for them, OK. Vancouver's in 2002 a little better. But whatever. They rocked, the sound was great, security was even chill and friendly.

At the end, joking about their red and white colours being, nationally, ours - the two suddenly paraded around a huge Alberta flag. It completely wrecked their palette, but somehow in their delicate hands, such a hoser move came off as totally sincere. Like they were asking us if they could be part of our seven-nation army.

Such a nice couple, really. It's almost a shame they chose to become internationally gleaming rock stars.

[Jaimoe]

Here's the Whitehorse setlist:

01. Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground

02. When I Hear My Name

03. Jolene

04. Hotel Yorba

05. I'm Finding It Harder To Be A Gentleman

06. I'm Slowly Turning Into You

07. Death Letter

08. Cannon

09. Ball And Biscuit

10. A Martyr For My Love For You

11. The Union Forever

12. The Same Boy You've Always Known

13. We're Going To Be Friends

14. Hello Operator

15. In The Cold, Cold Night

16. Wasting My Time

17. Astro

18. Jack The Ripper

19. (encore break)

20. Blue Orchid

21. Icky Thump

22. Little Ghost

23. I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself

24. Truth Doesn't Make A Noise

25. You've Got Her In Your Pocket

26. The Denial Twist

27. Seven Nation Army

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MTS Centre, Winnipeg -- July 2, 2007

White Stripes top off Canada day weekend

By DAVID SCHMEICHEL -- Sun Media

WINNIPEG - Their red-and-white colour scheme would have come in handy a day earlier, but alt-rock icons The White Stripes still made for a perfect end to the Canada Day weekend last night.

Making good on their promise to headline a show in each province and territory in our home and native land, charismatic frontman Jack White and his preternaturally cuddly ex-wife Meg delivered a rousing rock 'n' roll spectacle that should endear them to Canuck fans even more than their self-styled mythology already has.

That same mythology, by the way, would have you believe Meg is actually Jack's older sister, which is how he introduced her to the surprisingly sparse crowd of 6.000 last night, shortly after the two took to the stage for a sped-up version of Blue Orchid, the first single from 2005's Get Behind Me Satan disc.

Her head bopping sweetly from side to side -- and a blissed-out grin on her face -- Meg more than matched Jack's frantic pace as he darted maniacally across a stage tricked out all in red.

A series of microphones was set up in the corners of the stage so that Jack's trademark yowl came in loud and clear no matter where he was, whether bringing I'm Slowly Turning Into You to its climactic end by hissing the last verse directly into Meg's face, or ducking over to a bank of keyboards for some otherworldy solos on the new single Icky Thump.

Jack gave a thumbs-up to Winnipeg's public transportation system before strapping on a white acoustic guitar to bang out the rootsy rave-up Hotel Yorba, turned the slow-building Little Bird into an extended solo session and gave new meaning to the term "country gothic" with a downright spooky cover of Dolly Parton's Jolene.

He was equally awesome on show-stoppers like The Hardest Button to Button and I Want to be the Boy Who Warms Your Mother's Heart, and Meg managed to get in on the action, taking centre stage to handle vocals on the sublimely sexy In the Cold, Cold Night.

With just the two of them in the band -- and Meg rooted to the same spot for much of the night -- you'd think the Stripes would have a harder time coming up with a visual component that's even half as interesting as their bluesy hybrid of garage-rock and lo-fi Americana. But by the time they came back to encore with blistering spins through Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground, We Are Going to be Friends, Burt Bacharach's I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself and their monster smash Seven Nation Army, you better believe they had the full attention of everyone.

Alabama troubadour Dan Sartain opened with 45 minutes of punky surf-rock and psychobilly freakouts, and while it can't be easy serving as warm-up act for one of the biggest bands in the world, Sartain's hard-driving rockers (not to mention his retro/skeezy pompadour-and-pencil moustache combo) made for a great match.

[MK]

Photos: White Stripes Rock a City Bus [Winnipeg, Manitoba; 07/02/07]

Yesterday in Winnipeg, the White Stripes continued their habit of playing quirky secret shows before their official dates in the under-toured cities of Canada.

This time, instead of schoolhouse rocking or spear throwing, Jack and Meg took to a city bus already carrying in-the-know fans to Thump out "Wheels on the Bus" and "Hotel Yorba" before disappearing into the ether, aka the MTS Centre later that night. Perhaps you caught the video over in Forkcast?

Reader Thom Johnston was there to capture the action photographically, and for that, we thank him. His photos and more Stripes dates are below.

pitchfork

[MarcO]

honestly, this tour has surpassed anything I would expect from what is a Major International Touring Act. I just love Jack and Meg, and judging from the pics, they love touring Canada too.

The coolest band going? I think so.

[NewRider]

I can't understand why they aren't playing more off the new album. I love the album and hope I'm going to hear more of it on Thursday.

[guigsy]

so, they're gonna be in London same weekend as SunFest goin' on... wonder if they'll show up anywhere?

MK, keep us (read: me ) posted if you hear anything through the grapevine...

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hey guigsy, souljazz orchestra are playing saturday and sunday. if you like afro / funk / stuff, check em out.

[guigsy]

yeah, i saw that listing and made a note to check 'em out... lookin' forward to it

[jayr]

Anybody know if theres an opener in Toronto?

EDIT: Seems Dan Sartain is the opener. Anybody heard him?

Edited July 4, 2007 by Guest

[Jaimoe]

Anybody know if theres an opener in Toronto?

EDIT: Seems Dan Sartain is the opener. Anybody heard him?

I believe he's opening. I listened to some of his songs on MySpace last night and was really impressed. I can see why he was chosen to open for The Stripes.

[NewRider]

Yeah, his tunes on myspace are pretty good. He's a young buck too.

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White Stripes play Winnipeg bus, bridge

Last Updated: Tuesday, July 3, 2007 | 6:27 PM ET

CBC Arts

Some lucky fans of the White Stripes got up close and personal with the band, which played impromptu concerts on a bus and at a bridge in downtown Winnipeg.

White Stripes duo Meg and Jack White, seen here playing a spontaneous gig on a Winnipeg bridge, are on a cross-Canada tour.White Stripes duo Meg and Jack White, seen here playing a spontaneous gig on a Winnipeg bridge, are on a cross-Canada tour.

(Waubgeshig Rice/CBC)

The Detroit duo, in the middle of a cross-Canada tour that has them visiting every province and territory, played to very small but enthusiastic crowd just before their main show in Winnipeg on Monday night.

The White Stripes, Jack and Meg White, serenaded a handful of fans on a city bus and then got off to launch into an acoustic set on a city bridge.

Thom Johnston, who was tipped off by a friend to head to a certain location, said he was surprised to discover it was a bus stop. Then a transit bus came, with the White Stripes in it.

"I was blown away. I was sitting right across from them, and they started playing songs. It was incredible," Johnston said. "It's really admirable. They care a lot about their fans, and just take the extra time."

Continue Article

John Kendle, music critic for Uptown Magazine, lauded the musical pair for their dedication to their fans.

"It's very rare to find stars of the calibre of Jack and Meg White going out in the middle of the day [in the] cities that they're playing and drumming up a little bit of hype and sort of giving something back to fans."

Jack White is promoting the group's latest album, Icky Thump.Jack White is promoting the group's latest album, Icky Thump.

(Waubgeshig Rice/CBC)

The White Stripes delighted fans in the North recently with sold-out shows in Iqaluit, Yellowknife and Whitehorse, in addition to a spontaneous performance in a downtown park in Whitehorse. The duo also jammed with Inuit elders and ate caribou meat in Iqaluit.

The band, promoting its latest album, Icky Thump, started its 18-city Canadian tour on June 24 in Burnaby, B.C. The tour ends July 16 in St. John's.

"We've never done a full tour of Canada before, and we thought, if we're going to do one after all these years, we should really do it. Let's do it all the way," Jack White said in an earlier interview. "We don't like to do things halfway in this band."

The band's visit to the Maritimes will be a homecoming of sorts for Jack White, a distant cousin of Cape Breton, N.S., fiddlers Ashley MacIsaac and Natalie MacMaster.

MacIsaac has never met White, but will be the opening act in Glace Bay, N.S., for the three-time Grammy winners.

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June 29, 2007

Pengrowth Saddledome

Calgary, AB

by Trevor Morelli

With the Stampede only a week away, the park around the Saddledome was full of half-assembled rides and empty fry shacks. Walking toward the 'Dome for Friday's White Stripes show, there was only one question on my mind: would the duo throw in enough curveballs to keep me from yawning?

Hitting the simple red stage promptly at 8:45 p.m., the Stripes began by firing off many of the tunes heard in the early part of their sets thus far on tour. "When I Hear My Name," "Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground," "Icky Thump" and "Jolene" all got the crowd moving. Jack White proved to be quite the spaz onstage, while Meg's quiet, composed character balanced him out.

After the fourth tune, someone chucked a cowboy hat onstage, hoping Jack would take the bait. Unfortunately, he didn't. Much like their shows, the banter was kept to a minimum until "Hotel Yorba" when White switched to his now-famous white maple leaf acoustic guitar. He dedicated the song to "all the cowboys in Calgary" and got on with it.

Jack utilized the stage space well. Powder covered the floor, making for a subtle but cool dust storm effect whenever he stomped his feet to the beat. "Catch Hell Blues" and "A Martyr For My Love For You" were highlights from their new Icky Thump album, as were "In The Cold Cold Night" and "Ball And Biscuit" from 2002's Elephant.

"I want to send a shout-out to my cousin Al MacInnis," Jack said jokingly near the end of the set, referring to the former Flame and recent Hall Of Fame inductee. "This is where it all happened, right?"

As fun as their bluesy garage rock was, the Stripes saved the best for the encore, busting out crowd-pleasers "Blue Orchid" and "Black Math." Going for his best Jimmy Page impersonation, Jack used his trusty whammy pedal to the fullest during these two, combining deep octaves, speedy licks and ear-piecing high pitched notes to his advantage.

"My Doorbell" and "We're Going To Be Friends" were next, both earning goodwill with the 7,000 or so in attendance. The band also threw in "You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do as You're Told)," a new song that Jack said "had never been played before live."

Predictably, the Stripes capped off the night with an intentionally muddy but energetic version of "Seven Nation Army" before bringing out an Alberta flag.

And that was it. No impromptu daytime show. No "Fell In Love With A Girl." No "Hardest Button To Button." Not even "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself," which the Stripes have been known to toss into the set list on occasion. It was a fun show, but the overall tone was slightly tedious. A bit more from the all too awesome Elephant would have made it a bit sweeter, as would a more elaborate stage set-up.

[jayr]

It was a fun show, but the overall tone was slightly tedious. A bit more from the all too awesome Elephant would have made it a bit sweeter, as would a more elaborate stage set-up.

Maybe he should have seen them a few years ago. The more new stuff they play, the better as far as I'm concerned....which I'm not. Is it Thursday yet?

[Jaimoe]

I found admitting to an Elephant bias a little strange. I have a bias towards De Stijl, blues covers and the first album, but I'd never go into a Stripes concert wishing for any set of songs.

[phishtaper]

I'LL BE THERE!!

nice ...

BLUE ORCHID

HOTEL YORBA

HELLO OPERATOR

and im hoping for

MY DOORBELL

HARDEST BUTTON TO BUTTON

If you aren't in the pit, ya might as well not be there!! Bring it on!!

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Whites earn their stripes with Canadian fans

By ANN MARIE MCQUEEN

In an age of overprocessed music, publicity machines, image makers and Ashlee Simpson-esque fakery, the White Stripes seem to have struck a chord.

It's not just that they chose to celebrate their 10th anniversary with an extensive -- as in all provinces and territories -- tour of Canada.

It's not just that the music of Jack and Meg White has inspired fanaticism and turned critics' heads. These Detroit rockers -- who these days are usually decked out in red or white with a maple leaf proudly displayed on their stage amplifier -- seem so downright genuine, people seem drawn to them.

"Their stuff is so raw," says Noah Sabourin, music director for Ottawa's Live 88.5.

"They take out all the bells and whistles and it's about the music. There's a soul there."

They are hot tickets in most of the locations on their Canadian tour, which kicked off June 24 in front of 8,000 fans at Deer Lake Park in Burnaby, B.C., and wraps up July 16 in St. John's, N.L.

OBSCURE SITES

Many of the shows in between are at venues and in locations most rock stars wouldn't glance at. That includes the Yukon Arts Centre in Whitehorse, the Shorty Brown Multiplex Arena in Yellowknife and the Arctic Winter Games Arena in Iqaluit.

All this on the heels of the release of their latest CD, Icky Thump. Most acts at this juncture would be playing New York and Los Angeles, appearing on Leno and Letterman.

Larry LeBlanc, Canadian bureau chief for Billboard Magazine, says the fact they are even in Canada is mind-boggling.

"You do not go to Canada and go on an extensive tour. If you tried to explain this to a manager, he would say it's career suicide," said LeBlanc.

This tour proves Jack White is nothing if not a shrewd marketer, having cultivated an "of- the-people" credibility most rock stars can only dream of.

"I think this is the smartest group out there right now. I don't think it's hype," LeBlanc said.

The White Stripes play the Ottawa Bluesfest main stage Sunday night at 9:30.

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a couple weird lines in this review, i've bolded them

July 1, 2007

TCU Place

Saskatoon, SK

by Dan MacRae

Canada Day in Saskatchewan is a funny thing. For the majority of the population, this holiday generally involves getting cross-eyed drunk on pilsner, listening to "Summer Of '69" at ear-splitting volume and wildly overestimating the Roughriders chances of winning the Grey Cup. It's not a glamorous life, but it's simply how things are done around here. However, for a select number of residents, Canada Day was a whole other animal altogether — it was the day that a pair of chalk-skinned troubadours came to town and stole our hearts.

As you've likely read, Jack and Meg White have been making a habit out of dropping by unexpected locales and playing surprise sets. Today was no different, as the duo selected the Eastview Bowl as the site for a thrilling mini-concert. The pair stormed through a brief but exciting 15-minute set that concluded with Jack launching a ball down the lane with his guitar slung on his back. This drove the 200 fans in attendance into a frenzy, and justifiably so. Immediately after the set, everyone was on their cell phones bragging to their friends that they'd witnessed the most exciting thing to happen in a bowling alley since Walter Sobchack pulled a gun on Smokey in The Big Lebowski. This was the stuff of local legends.

Hours later the Stripes returned for their proper concert at the 2,000 seat TCU Centre (known affectionately to locals as "The Teacup"), and they didn't disappoint. The duo can knock a festival crowd's dick in the dirt, so what match is an intimate venue of salivating fans? None apparently, as everyone in attendance went berserk during their raucous set. From the kneebuckling hits ("Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground," "My Doorbell") to the fantastic deep cuts ("Apple Blossom," "The Union Forever") to the live staples ("Jolene"), Jack and Meg had the charisma and the tunes to keep the crowd enchanted for every moment of their performance.

For the 100 minutes they crashed about on stage, Jack was a whirling dervish on guitar. A red blur with an enormous bulge in his pants and a possessed look on his face, Jack hammered out the tunes while Meg played the drums with what is either a bashful grin or a bratty pout on her face. Much is said about Meg's unorthodox approach to rhythm, but when she's on stage with Jack they are simpatico. As a result, the crowd hung on their every word, strum and backbeat.

The show closed with Jack waving the Saskatchewan flag to the adoring public. The crowd left awed, sweaty and completely drained. We have two kind folks from Detroit to thank for giving us a Canada Day we'll never forget.

[phishtaper]

gosh, i wonder what Freud would say about one Mr. Dan MacRae ...

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Collective Dick is a good band name