By By Chris Toia
The White Stripes rocked Coney Island Concert goers harder than a ride on the Cyclone on Sept. 25.
Finding Keyspan Park that night was as simple as following the seemingly endless flow of hipsters draining out of the F and D trains. Surprisingly, for every five hipsters there was a metalhead, complete with requisite black hoodie and piercings, a living omen of the music that was about to be experienced.
Once at Keyspan Park, the air hung heavy with the dank scent of everyone’s favorite illicit pastime. The park itself was a strange venue for a concert. Clearly conceived with the soul purpose of holding minor league baseball events, it immediately felt too cavernous, too large for a band like the White Stripes. Consider anybody’s list of bands whose sound can fill an entire stadium: The Who, Queen, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Now add the White Stripes with a bullet.
As Jack and Meg White took the stage to the roar of several thousand adoring fans, it would be easy for any uninitiated members of the audience to feel duped. An unassuming woman and a man who appeared to be wearing cowboy pajamas that he had outgrown 20 years ago were alone on the stage. Could this strange duo really rock as hard as everyone says they can? The answer: Yeah, hell yeah and then some.
From the first note everyone in the audience was locked in. Meg kept perfect time on the drums as Jack screeched and wailed through a rendition of “When I Hear My Name,” which segued perfectly into Get Behind Me Satan’s first single “Blue Orchid.” Here Jack really starts to work the guitar, toying with it and coaxing out notes that no guitar was ever built to wale. It sounded less like he was playing the guitar than he was torturing it-and it liked it.
What really cemented the White Stripes’ ability to command a stadium, though, was Jack White’s voice. Unlike other singers who try to nurture and protect their fragile vocal chords, Jack belted out every line like it was his death rattle-half-screaming and half-singing every line and absolutely maximizing his limited range.
Meanwhile, despite the White Stripes’ obvious lack of a bass player, Meg White’s simple drumming formed an incredibly effective rhythm section. Without fail Meg kept perfect time, regardless of Jack’s constant tempo shifts. In fact, Meg doesn’t just fulfill the role of living metronome, she somehow infuses more energy into her playing than one would think is humanly possible.
Everyone in the stadium was on their feet and dancing from the first beat to the last-well, the metalheads were rhythmically pumping their fists, and the hipsters were shaking like a crackhead after a large cup of coffee-but everyone was at least trying to dance. Simply put, between Jack and Meg Keystone Park was infused with more energy than a nuclear reactor being rocketed into the sun.
Though the first set was sure to please any fan, the highlight was almost certainly an incredible performance of “Dead Leaves on the Dirty Ground.” Already one of the Stripes’ heavier songs, the pair played this song so hard that somebody might have mistaken them for Metallica circa 1990. Meg pounded the drums like they murdered her father and when Jack sang (read: screamed), “If you can hear a piano fall / than you can hear me coming down the hall,” everyone in the stadium understood.
After a brief intermission, The White Stripes came out for an extended encore that functioned more like a second set. The entire set was incredible, matching the intensity of the first and upping the ante further.
After a breathtakingly strong “Hardest Button to Button,” Jack White fired up the first few notes of “Ball and Biscuit” and the crowd more or less exploded. The song, little more than an excuse for Jack to show off his virtuosity, certainly did just that. Jack White played the guitar like the devil lived in his fingers and he was trying to shake him out. His twin guitar solos during “Ball and Biscuit” were reminiscent of an inverse “Layla.”
Then, ending the song on a final sweet note, Jack dropped the guitar and pulled out its plug, picking up a down-tuned electric acoustic, starting the deep drone of “Seven Nation Army” before the final note of “Ball and Biscuit” had a chance to finish reverberating.
Finally, the night ended with Jack giving a blessedly brief, though undeniably creepy, speech about his gratitude towards his “sister” Meg. Given the chance, there is no reason to have any reservations whatsoever about seeing the White Stripes in concert.