After Tuesday’s Dead Weather show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York, I’m burning all my ribbons and bows and trashing my Peter Pan collars. From here on out, it’s head to toe black, and I’ll learn how to not fall down with my hair in my face, because Alison Mosshart is my new role model.
Last time The Dead Weather were in New York, they packed Terminal 5 in midtown Manhattan for two summer nights. This time, they hopped over a river to really pack much smaller MHoW for a one off show. Tickets were hard to come by. I scored mine thanks to being a member of The Vault fan club. I knew those obsessive fan tendencies would come in handy sooner or later!
The words “super group” are thrown around a lot thanks to The Dead Weather's lineup. With Jack White (The White Stripes, The Raconteurs), Alison Mosshart (The Kills), Jack Lawrence (The Raconteurs, The Greenhornes) and Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age), you’d think it would be hard to pick someone to throw your focus to on stage. But not when Alison is up there. For me, debilitated from full-blown Jack White fever, even he becomes a part of the background and all three boys just melt behind her.
Australia’s Violent Soho opened the show. If you like flannel and 90s grunge, they are right up your alley. For the rest of us, their stage banter was funny and their set was short.
During the set change anytime a tech touched Jack’s drums or Alison’s guitar, the crowd erupted in cheers. And with each cheer anticipation and excitement grew, especially my own. I love this band. I love Jack White. I love Brooklyn (sort of…). It was bound to be a good night.
The lights dimmed. The crew pulled back the curtains to reveal the backdrop with floral artwork from their album Horehound, which is the name of a plant by the way. The stage flooded with blue light and The Dead Weather took to their instruments.
I would argue Horehound is the sexiest album of the year. And their live show certainly lives up to that. Some say it’s the tension between Jack and Alison that results in a show so ripe with sex. But I disagree. It’s the relationship between Alison and the music. She thrashes, swoons, writhes and practically vibrates with each chord.
They barreled through the whole album, except “Birds” I think, and threw in some covers including Van Morrison’s “You Just Can’t Win” and The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band’s “A Child Of A Few Hours Is Burning To Death.” My favorite song off the album is a cover of Bob Dylan’s “New Pony.” Live, Alison manages to make it more perverse and strange than even Dylan himself.
Their aesthetic was very striking. Dressed in black, their instruments white and the lights blue. The lighting played games with the crowd all night. Strobes would flash and flicker, intertwining with lit up camera screens and camera flashes. It all became dream. I felt separate from my body, in a good way, with sensory overload in my ears and eyes.
The only thing that broke the spell was an odd incident near the end of the show. Jack traded his drums for his guitar and moved to the front of the stage near Jack Lawrence. Alison got all up in his guitar playing business, seemingly playfully, as she has been doing all night, but Jack reacted by elbowing her so hard she fell on the monitors.
She recovered quickly, but it happened once more, with less force later in the song. It seemed completely out of character for Jack. I’d even go as far to say if there were anyone you’d expect to shove a woman, Jack would be absolutely last on that list. I’m not sure if it was play fighting, staged or serious but it made me uncomfortable and confused.
Otherwise it was a visual and auditory feast. Sadly, I realize all the black eyeliner in the world coupled with skinniest black drainpipes and most perfect leopard cardigans couldn’t make me as cool as Alison. So, instead, if both time travel and reincarnation exist, I’d like to go back to 1978 and be born Miss Mosshart, please.