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"Jack and Meg White share a stage surname, a flair for feeding rumors, and a predilection for white and red color schemes. What they don&amp;apos;t share, unfortunately, is a talent for their respective instruments.Over four albums, Jack White has proven that he is a fantastic guitarist and an immense songwriting talent. But it might take another act covering the White Stripes to make that clear, because seeing the duo in concert is like watching a gifted artist cut a demo. It&amp;apos;s as if he says to Meg, &amp;quot;Hey, can you just keep time for me while I get this stuff down on tape?&amp;quot;As soon as the Stripes hit Denver&amp;apos;s Fillmore Auditorium Friday night, they launched speechlessly into the early tune &amp;quot;The Big Three Killed My Baby.&amp;quot; A string of songs from 2001&amp;apos;s White Blood Cells followed: &amp;quot;Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Hotel Yorba&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;I&amp;apos;m Finding It Harder to Be a Gentleman.&amp;quot; Then the set diversified, bouncing between albums and ultimately evenly spanning their recorded history: from their eponymous debut to this year&amp;apos;s Elephant.The songs blurred like the years and spoken words slurred into one another, and the whole thing slowly turned into a bunch of electro pseudo-blues gobbledy gook. But when the crowd settled down about an hour into the ninety-minute show, the band&amp;apos;s flaws really started to show.Meg&amp;apos;s simplistic skin-pounding, her child-like delivery and coy posturing resemble a stunt more than they suggest unique technique or talent. Even the White Stripes&amp;apos; positioning onstage -- Jack frequently singing incoherently into a mike behind the drums, Meg playing directly to him at all times -- suggested as much. The only thing that made her a better choice than a drum machine was her partner&amp;apos;s ability to control her tempo without physically pushing a button. Well, she&amp;apos;s cute, too. With the magic of multi-tracking, the White Stripes&amp;apos; albums are full enough to squeak by as complete; the raw minimalism comes off as edgy rather than lacking.Some tunes, like &amp;quot;Yorba Hotel&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;I Want to be the Boy that Warms Your Mother&amp;apos;s Heart,&amp;quot; withstood the live strip-down. And Meg shone on her sultry vocal showcase &amp;quot;In the Cold Cold Night.&amp;quot; But too many songs sounded downright thin.As Jack claimed during a two-song encore that ended with Leadbelly&amp;apos;s &amp;quot;Boll Weevil,&amp;quot; a &amp;quot;Seven Nation Army&amp;quot; might not be able to hold him back. But eventually his apparent aversion to forming a real band might."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/stripes-leave-denver-cold-20030922>