The Dead Weather sounded metallic all the way through, trafficking in the proto-metal avenues down which the likes of Blue Cheer, Deep Purple and the Stooges at their grimiest caroused. We even felt swatches of industrial and post-punk throughout, with Mosshart acting like a post-op Peter Murphy.
The foreboding mood stayed the same for an hour and half, with the only thing changing how each corner was shaded. Some songs were angry, and some would make a dead man come. The new "Die by the Drop" loped through the room like a ghostly steed with Mosshart riding him on the top of our heads.
Towards the end of the night, "Will There Be Enough Water" happened to us. White came out solo on a small square electric guitar, playing riffs that should be cut up into lines and snorted off a mirror. Mosshart came out behind him smoking a cigarette, giving him the sort of look you only see in porno reels. If you saw it, you would have looked away out of sheer self-preservation. Then they played the duration of the six-minute dirge locked in a threesome with the mike in the front of the stage.
As for "New Pony," well, that featured Mosshart howling about a pony named Lucifer which scared us and made us sweat way too much. Something about her screaming "pony" up front didn't seem legal and made us feel dirty.
"I Cut like a Buffalo" ended our night like a cold wet towel being snapped in our face. Mosshart jumped on a riser on the stage and looked at all of us like she owned us, and she did. For the first time in our history as a rock writer, we went not directly to a bar to bathe in the afterglow of a show; we actually went directly to the office to write down what we just saw.
As we sit here, we can hear people driving through town listening to the Dead Weather. It's that raw and fresh.