White Stripes Myrtle Beach Review

This is a review from a very good friend of mine, Leigh. She traveled to Myrtle Beach last weekend to see The White Stripes in concert and to say she is a huge fan isn't doing her justice.

Here's the review....

The White Stripes
House of Blues
North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
July 29, 2007

I got to the House of Blues in South Carolina around 4:30 p.m. and the doors opened at 7. This is the latest I’ve ever been to a show that I really wanted to see and I mentally kicked myself for waiting so late to get to the venue. There were probably about 60 people ahead of me (I’m used to 0 to 10 people ahead) so I was really upset at myself. While in line, I made friends with this girl from Birmingham, Alabama named Elise and a guy from Ohio. During our conversation, I learned that the line I was in was only for people who had bought food or purchased at least $15 worth of crap from the House of Blues. Totally crap! There were tons of people like me that didn’t know that if you were in that line (which would be the first line admitted in) and you didn’t have a receipt, you would be turned away at the door. There were no signs posted about it! Lucky for me, Elise and the cool guy From Ohio said they’d save my spot while I got my stuff. I had to spend $22 on a HOB shirt just to secure my place in line, boo to the HOB. To add insult to injury, when they checked our tickets at the door they didn’t even check to see if we had receipts. UGH!!! 22$ WASTED!!!!

As for the show, Jack was amazing! He began with Icky Thump and then jammed on You Don’t Know What Love Is. Dan Sartain opened and Ben Blackwell, Jack’s nephew who is in the amazing seminal-Detroit band the Dirtbombs, was on drums.

The best song had to be I’m Slowly Turning Into You. Jack started with I Can’t Wait and merged into ISTIY. He kept raising his hand for us to say “yeah”. He was like some kind of evangelistic preacher, as he jumped on the monitors. He looked really into it sometimes but then he would look so frustrated so I don’t know what was going on. I think the sound was bugging him because he kept going to the side of the stage and making “turn it down” gestures. After one of the times he did that, he shook his head and mouthed a curse word.

I’ve heard a lot of bootlegs and I’m well aware that the Stripes segue into random/familiar songs a lot. Usually the songs flow into one another but tonight it wasn’t as smooth. It was more halting, like Jack couldn’t make up his mind what to do. He kind of stalked around, absently playing his guitar while deciding what to do. He stopped a couple of songs and started new ones and Meg looked genuinely pissed each time.

They played Boll Weevil and they said they enjoyed us. I knew they would because the crowd was very energetic and sang along to all of the songs. Jack really did seem to enjoy us, but I think he may have cold due to the way his voice sounded at times.
Jack did a truly unique version of Hardest Button To Button. It sounded nothing like the original and Jack called out Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Jessica Simpson, Ashlee Simpson, Paris Hilton, etc.. And then he kept saying something like “wake up, wake up, before you throw up”. I hope that shows up somewhere online. They also did the best version of Cannon that I’ve ever heard and they did an extremely long version of Union Forever.

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So now my input along with a link to the video of YDKWLI. If you read the comments under the video, it looks like there is some confusion about who's face is painted on the back of Jack's guitar. I personally think it looks more like Marilyn Monroe but I could totally be wrong. Let me know what you all think.


Also it's annoying to me that Meg is playing a tambourine, when it's actually a cymbal being played....god she freakin' annoys me to the core, and it's sad because I want to be able to enjoy their stuff, but I can't. Doesn't Jack's face remind you of the Joker in the Batman comics? I like him with his hair in front of his face.

Also, I've been asking every drummer I run into about what they think of Meg and so far, not one positive comment. I mean, Meg's pretty and all but it's totally not fair that she gets to tour being as bad as she is. This is what is so frustrating to me about the music industry, it's all about the look, not about the talent and we all know she would not be where she is if Jack wasn't so talented, and good at editing her drum parts to make them sound like robotic loops. I challenge her to a female drum off!

Leigh told me in an email that she overheard someone calling Meg's drum beats "witty." Witty? WTF? Can you tell that I'm jealous because I am and I don't care at all to admit it. I used to lock myself in my room and practice for 6 hours a day when I was younger so that one day I could drum professionally and it's honestly a slap in the face that really makes me want to give up at times when I see another female drummer that makes a mockery of my god-given craft.

Let me finish with this question, if you were say -- a great actor with 25 years of acting under your belt, could you stomach sitting through a 2 hour movie with a horrible lead actor? If you could stomach it, would you sit through the movie again and again and again? You tell me.....