This month’s release from Third Man Records takes us back two decades with The White Stripes’ May 11, 2005 show from Monterrey, Mexico.
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From long-time White Stripes fan Mike:
Under the red and white banner of Coca-Cola, the band from Southwest Detroit kick off the Get Behind Me Satan tour in Northeast Mexico, their first show in over 8 months. As it turns out, the venue was apparently only half-full, due to the two local soccer teams both having important games on this day. Something poetic about the sport that had co-opted the band’s music from the last tour, turning “Seven Nation Army” into an anthem, now also co-opting their audience at the start of the new one. After the pre-show sounds of the local crowd speaking Spanish, the band take the stage with the sound of Jack doing a quick check on the strings. The brief chord he strikes sounds eerily similar to the famous opening chord of the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night”, like an unintentionally symbolic start to the first show of what would be their most expansive world tour. After the opener of “Dead Leaves”, Jack gives a warm greeting of “Hermanos y Hermanas!”, and it’s into “Black Math.” And just as you think how familiar it all seems, as Math ends with a prolonged wail of feedback, you suddenly hear the sound of the Electro-Harmonix POG pedal being switched on, as if timestamping the exact moment when the Elephant era officially makes way for Get Behind Me Satan, setting up the live debut of “Blue Orchid.” This first performance of the song even starts with a set of pulsing notes mimicking “The Hardest Button To Button”, like a real-time metamorphosis from one phase into the next. In addition to “Blue Orchid”, this show also features the live debuts of “My Doorbell”, “The Nurse”, “The Denial Twist”, “Little Ghost”, “Passive Manipulation” and “I’m Lonely (But I Ain’t That Lonely Yet)” – the selection of songs perfectly highlighting all of the wonderful new instruments that the band had added to the stage, from the Steinway grand piano and the Rhodes piano bass, to the pair of vintage acoustic guitars (a white Gibson J-160e used on “Hotel Yorba”, and a Gibson L-1 on “We’re Going to Be Friends”), a vintage Gibson F-4 mandolin, and of course the marimba and timpani – complete with triangle. This is also the first show to feature the Rob Jones-designed backdrop featuring a garden of eden setting with a giant white apple in the center, which could be turned from white to red depending on the lighting. And just as the new set design would remain for the entirety of the tour, so too would Jack’s updated stage look, complete with cordobes-style hat. And yet, even with how deliberate the stage design and visual presentation of the new tour was, you can still hear Jack off-mic confirming with Meg before each new song gets played. Still the same spontaneous Stripes, no setlist required. With the new songs having been recorded just weeks before the show, the performance still manages to have an experimental feel to it, even though the songs are played almost exactly as they sound on the soon-to-be-released record. And even with the expected adjustments that come with the debut of new music after having been off the road for so long, the band sound confident and refreshed here, making the performance a wonderful start to the tour. “Passive Manipulation”, at just 35 seconds long, might be the unexpected highlight of the night, featuring Jack staying on the staccato chords the whole way through, and Meg ending the song with an off-mic “That’s it!” and a quiet laugh. Listen also for the debut of Blind Willie Johnson’s “Lord I Just Can’t Keep From Crying”, performed here as a vocal interlude in “Death Letter” – in the spot normally occupied by “Grinnin’ In Your Face” and “Motherless Children.” By the next performance of the song two shows later in Mexico City, Jack would add a guitar accompaniment and place it at the beginning of “Death Letter” – a format which he would repeat at future dates on the tour. The show also features excellent renditions of the older songs, with the back half of “Fell In Love With A Girl” getting a welcome reprise of the Joss Stone version, “Let’s Build a Home” featuring Jack doing an excellent Cliff Gallup-style rockabilly guitar solo in the middle, and “I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself” picking up where the Elephant tour left off, with the audience singing along loud and happy.
