The White Stripes film brings the memories flooding back

‘Under Great White Northern Lights’ gets the thumbs up

The thing with the White Stripes is, you get it or you don’t, you buy into it or you don’t. There are a whole load of contradictions and untruths in the duo but if you took these peculiarities away, they wouldn’t be anywhere near as charming or beguiling as they are.

The Glasgow Film Festival showed their ‘Under Great White Northern Lights’ and after a false start, the audience settled down. It is kind of strange watching this type of film in a cinema. The live performances are as close as you will get to a gig without being a gig and at times you do have to check yourself from clapping at the end of a song.

Or maybe that’s just us; we’re maybe not all there.

The film took place in the bands 2007 Canadian tour, just before Meg suffered the breakdown that has derailed the band.

Jack has moved on with the Raconteurs and Dead Weather but not too much has been heard from the drummer since. There weren’t too many moments which indicated what was to follow for Meg but the final scene was rather touching.

If you’ve seen The White Stripes live, you will know what to expect from the live clips.

Jack, all action and bluster whilst Meg, demure and playing a rather basic drum beat. Meg takes abuse at times for her simplistic style of drumming but it works and allows Jack the freedom to venture to wherever he wants to.

A good twist from the tour came with the band playing unusual afternoon sets in the towns and cities of the gig and this made for some of the more humorous parts of the film. We don’t want to spoil too many scenes for people who still want to see the film but the live footage from the bowling alley is well worth watching.

“Rock n Bowl” as one of our mates said!

There were also a lot of good scenes and soundbites, with Jack and Meg coming across as earnest as you could imagine. Whether it is helping kids to sing or meeting Inuit folk in the North of Canada, they came across as being genuinely interested in what they were seeing and meeting as many people as they could.

It is easy to throw accusations of fakery and mythology at the duo but like we said at the start, you get it or you don’t. We buy into the stories and the backdrops and the red, white and black but only because the music carries it all.

There are so many fake bands today but there are very few with the tunes and swagger that The White Stripes had. We hope they get back on the road and in the studio but if they don’t, we’ve always got the tunes they’ve already given us.

Anyways, here are three of our favourite White Stripes tracks….although none of them are actually White Stripes songs!

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