Jack White

Brighton Centre, Brighton, Tuesday, October 16

THE Brighton Centre played host to renowned rock guitarist and singer Jack White during the European leg of his world tour promoting the recent release of his third album ‘Boarding House Reach’.

With such a plethora of songs ranging from other largely successful projects such as ‘The Raconteurs’ and ‘The White Stripes’, I was very interested to see how his set list would pan out and let me tell you, I was not disappointed.

At the centre of the stage there was a bear claw of multiple microphones, which during the gig revealed that each had different effects.

The mostly blue lighting, a colour which White has seemingly adopted for his solo career, and an array of instruments all facing centre stage, White and Co exploded onto the stage with a high energy version of Over And Over And Over from his latest album.

This set a glorious pace for the seemingly unending delight White had prepared for us.

With seamless transitions from song to song, White was not afraid to dip into the past early in the set, including classic White Stripes track ‘Hotel Yorba’ along with a few others.

White suddenly grabbed his acoustic guitar to finish his trip down memory lane with the beautifully written The Same Boy You’ve Always Known and with this, White hooked any old fans early into the set.

After the emotional flash back to the past, White wasted no time in bringing everyone into the current year with back to back tracks from his latest album showing all the flare, cleverness and uniquely unpredictable guitar parts that White has mastered.

The set flew by and soon enough White sneakily ended the set with Raconteurs track Carolina Drama.

White and Co. left the stage leaving the 4000+ strong crowd screaming for more and having heard the pleas from fans, they returned to finish us off with huge tracks Steady As She Goes and Seven Nation Army.

Although White rarely spoke to the audience, he rarely stopped playing for the whole time he was on stage.

I found that whether playing a heavily fuzzed solo or stretching out long unassuming notes, the fluidity in which he performed was such that everyone was left jaw dropped and you could tell he spoke louder with his music and performance than he could with words.

Alex Beharrell