Under Great White Northern Lights

White and Black earn their Stripes on the road

Live albums are generally essential listening only for diehard obsessive fans – unless you were at the gig in question, they can only be a tantalising souvenir of a party that you weren’t invited to.

The White Stripes transcend this rule of thumb because their raw, serrated rock comes into its own live, where Jack White’s rudimentary but fluent compositions gain a thrillingly visceral edge.

Recorded over a 2007 tour that saw White and Meg Black play every territory in Canada, and accompanied by an on-the-road documentary DVD, Under Great White Northern Lights sees the pair roar through their peerless back catalogue with incendiary brio.

White is on tremendous form, testifying and speaking in tongues on Black Math and reinventing both Dolly Parton’s Jolene and his own Fell In Love With A Girl, and the closing Seven Nation Army cements a rare achievement: a live record that really is as good as being there.

Album Review by Ian Gittins