“Fuck this shit! Put on the Stripes!”

Huh? Where am I?

Physically, I know where I am. My body is crammed into the back of the Tweeter Center amphitheater. I’m a mere dot in a sea of whitewashed Abercrombie models, middle-aged stockbrokers and graying hipsters. Some stammering hip-hopper in an XXXL T-shirt that reads “Homicidal, Suicidal, Genocidal” is waving his $6 brew-in-a-cup high above his head and screaming “Bullshit! Bullshit!” like a broken record. Again I ask, where the hell am I?

One year ago, this never would’ve happened: the White Stripes playing the same venue as Jay-Z? Ha. One year ago, that stage sure looked awfully big for two people, a drum kit and an organ. It’s easy to sound jaded spilling ink on the new super-sized Stripes, now a marker of coolness from Blender to the Big Apple to Birmingham, Ala. Yet there’s something hopeful and liberating about seeing Jack and Meg prowl a massive amphitheater stage. Something that says, “Hey, if they can do it ... why can’t the rest of us?”

It’s also quite a kick in the ass to see the Stripes squeeze more power out of a rickety drum set and a rotating cast of vintage guitars than most modern-rock bands muster with multiple riffs and a full rhythm section. Yeah, it was cool when you hipper-than-thou cats caught them at the dive bar around the corner back in their Sympathy For The Record Industry days, but there’s no denying the ferocity of new songs like “The Hardest Button To Button” and “Black Math” in an arena context.

The music was stellar—if you could block out the frat boys and Eminem clones crowding the aisles and yelling “Rock and roll!” for no apparent reason. Crowd favorite “Seven Nation Army” marched in time to sputtering strobes, Jack White’s pained interpretation of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” took on a striking, sinister tone and a sprawling “Ball And Biscuit” alternated between splitting guitar solos and bashed-out drum numbers. Old-timers were treated to barroom-nasty renditions of “Hello Operator” and a cover of Son House’s “Death Letter.” When Jack wasn’t making sweet love to his guitar—a veritable third appendage—he writhed atop his organ, telling the story of a girl named “Apple Blossom.”

And of utmost importance to both the British press and Stripes superfans: How’s Wacko’s fret finger doing since he crashed his Porsche? Finger’s fine, although Jack could use a haircut. Unsurprisingly, Meg’s own peppermint-clad physique elicited a few catcalls from oversexed meatheads during “In The Cold, Cold Night.” What’s getting a tad creepy is Jack’s insistence on continually saying things like, “Hello, my name is Jack White and this is my big sister Meg,” in his broken Detroit drawl. Who is he kidding with that Southern-gentleman routine? Jack, you were on the cover of Blender, for Gories’ sake.

Actually, who am I kidding? The thousands that surrounded me came only to hear “Fell In Love With A Girl”—which, to the dismay of one drunk shouting, “Fell In Love With A Girl, man!” over and over, the Stripes never played. In the end, none of my snobbery matters. Rock Is Back is little more than a media construct. Pop still equals Justin Timberlake flashing gang signs, and to the masses, the White Stripes is nothing more than music to pound plastic cups to.