Jack White

I thought it was going to be a four-way duke-out between Leonard, Broooooce, Grimes and PiL but, no, Jack White has now entered the scrap for Clarkian Gig of the Year.
Opting for the female of the backing band species, it was The Peacocks who helped their flamboyantly trousered leader – it’s not everyone who can pull off the electric blue look – crank out a 20-song set that mixed White Stripes classics (‘Dead Leaves & The Dirty Ground’, ‘Hotel Yorba’, ‘The Hardest Button To Button’) with Raconteurs rockers (‘Top Yourself’, ‘Steady, As She Goes’, ‘Carolina Drama’), gothier Dead Weather workouts (‘Blue Blood Kiss’), solo album highlights (‘Sixteen Saltines’, ‘Love Interruption’, ‘Trash Tongue Talker’) and a lost Hank Williams song (‘You Know That I Know’).
That Jack has been residing in Nashville was evident from the honky tonk piano and fiddle embellishments, but really this was just a scabrous rock ‘n’ roll show full of crunchy Led Zep power chords, thermo-nuclear drumming courtesy of Carla Azar and Mr. White’s impassioned fingers-caught-in-the-car-door yelp.
In marked contrast to Muse who bring an inverted pyramid with them to the O2 a few days later, the pale but always interesting 37-year-old manages to dazzle this Halloween night with nowt more than his musicianship and very obvious love of what he’s doing.
Any remaining jams are kicked out with the double encore whammy of ‘Ball & Biscuit’ and the song that was Top Of The Euro 2012 Terrace Chant Pops, ‘Seven Nation Army’.
“It’s good to be back,” he says taking a rare breather. “I would have been here sooner but I had to help some kids make a bonfire down the street.”
It seems Jack White just can’t help being incendiary