The White Stripes (and their secret gigs)

It's 10.30am and you're the manager of Toronto's YMCA . A man calls you and says he works for the White Stripes and that they want to come and play an exclusive show, just for the kids at your day centre. It's a joke, surely? 'At first I wasn't sure if they were serious", said Jamie Slater, of the aforementioned youth centre. "They said they did search on 'Toronto' and 'fun' and the YMCA popped up." Hours later, Detroit's finest are strumming away to a set of bemused toddlers and the few lucky superfans who caught the last minute message on the band's website and hot-tailed it down there in time.

Alison Hunter of the Saskatoon Bowling Alley also thought it was a joke when someone from the White Stripes camp called her last Saturday evening to confirm it would be ok for the band to pop down and play for her customers the following afternoon. It wasn't until the band began setting up around 3pm Sunday that Hunter really believed they'd show.

Unlike the secret shows we all read about under the headline "band announces secret show", the recent spate of White Stripes performances have been genuinely surprising. They're not for industry folk (though inevitably, some of those folk will be there), as the 'secret" shows often are, in the Stripes case, it's part of a long-held tradition on their part to keep live music as spine-tingling and thrilling as possible. If you don't believe me, just witness the reaction of the passengers on this bus in Winnipeg when they are treated to an unexpected rendition of Hotel Yorba (the man shouting "OH MY GOD!!!"" sounds like he's about to go into shock).

A rumour found its way to me that during a recent press conferences for Icky Thump, their 6th studio album, a journalist from a music publication- which shall remain nameless- asked Jack whether he thought Meg ever worried that he would leave her for a third time (the first being when he left their marriage and the second his secondment to the Raconteurs). Both Stripes got up and walked out. Every time the White Stripes release a new record, some section of the press will inevitably question whether their creative and personal relationship is tenuous and nearing its end. And yet - as their touring schedule shows quite clearly - the pair are nowhere near running on empty.

Like everything about the White Stripes, from the clothes they wear to the places they choose to record their albums, the venues of these surprise shows aren't incidental. The retro bowling alley, the everyday simplicity of a bus journey, the innocence of a child day care centre: each of the gigs throws up another concept to chew on, one that maintains the band's mystique in the process.

After ten years together, the White Stripes display more creativity, ingenuity and vision than a thousand mindless indie bands put together. Rather than questioning when its all going to end, shouldn't we be asking: where next?

text from TheGuardian blog