FOUND it hard enough to believe that this duo - once an underground musical dream fuelled by scratchy guitar and thumping drums - could be playing the cavernous void which is the SECC.

Yet on Saturday night, my disbelief was heightened still as I rubbed shoulders with boozed-up ex-Oasis fans and girls wearing flashing red devils’ horns.

In the last 12 months, we’ve seen the White Stripes rocket from a fan base of indie kids and John Peel to become perfect tabloid fodder, with super-model hangers-on, inter-band punch-ups and Hollywood love interests. The White Stripes are not a singalong band, so in a venue made for choruses to be chanted, I had serious doubts that two skinny, black-haired Detroiters could pull off a gig like this.

When they sidled onto a starkly set up stage, however, all the hype and hits were utterly overshadowed by the fact that Jack White is something of a modern-day musical wizard.

Dressed dapperly in black and red, with long locks strewn across his face, he plugged in his guitar and that famously stroppy squall of feedback, and the desperate, screeching vocals soon cut through the venue, making it impossible to focus on anything other than the breathtaking sounds emanating from his fingers.

Meg, as ever, provided the staunch and almost impertinent rhythmic backing, but it became very clear that she should leave the singing to her other half when she took to the microphone for lead vocals on In The Cold Cold Night - rather embarrassingly, she could barely hold the tune.

They played a stunning set of tracks taken from each of their four LPs, with the crowd predictably going the most wild for Seven Nation Army.

However, it all came to a rather sour close when someone hurled a shoe on stage in the encore, smacking Jack in the face.

He stopped the song and tore straight into early material, his playing clearly driven by rage-filled fervour, before coming to a defiantly ragged and triumphant end Jack The Ripper.

The incident proved that in the atmosphere of soulless mainstream success they now call home, the White Stripes’ raw emotion and talent still shine through.

source : the scotsman