Dead Weather Wrap Tour in New York

Jack White and Alison Mosshart are mirror images, a vampire king and his succubus queen. Tall, dark and fearsome, they're what Elvis and Ann-Margret would have looked like had 'Viva Las Vegas' taken place in hell. Real or not, the sexual tension between the two is central to the Dead Weather. It's also too hot to burn for an entire show. Tuesday night in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, where the goth-blues supergroup wrapped its summer tour, White momentarily stepped out of character, treating Mosshart not like a mysterious spider lady -- a persona she carries over from her day-job band, the Kills -- but rather a kid sister, maybe even a Meg White.

During the meet-the-band portion of the evening, White introduced Mosshart as "Baby Ruthless," the one with "big black hair and a big white attitude." "She's white as f---," he told fans, and to underscore her whiteness, he accused the singer of frequenting a certain music site many of Tuesday's concertgoers no doubt have bookmarked on their computers.

"You probably read Brooklyn Vegan, don't you?" White asked, provoking Mosshart to race back to the drum set, where the White Stripes frontman spends much of his Dead Weather time, and flail away in mock anger. "Any vegans in out there? Let's kill a cow together!"

This was one of the few moments the Dead Weather acknowledged the artificiality of the world it creates for itself. Also featuring Queens of the Stone Age guitarist Dean Fertita and bassist Jack Lawrence, a member of the Greenhornes and the Raconteurs, one of White's other side projects, the band essentially has two kinds of songs. The first, and by far the most prevalent, is the dark, dirty-sexy riff-based roadhouse stomper. Examples from Monday's set included opener '60 Feet Tall,' 'Hang You From the Heavens' and 'Hustle and Cuss.'

The Dead Weather also plays the occasional oozy ballad, such as 'You Can't Win,' originally by the Van Morrison-fronted '60s garage group Them. The tune found White at the front of the stage, swinging a stick and marching like a despot. Fertita, meanwhile, played funeral-parlor organ, a la the Animals' 'House of the Rising Sun.'

Closer 'Will There Be Enough Water?' was another eerie slog, this one a stark blues duet on which White and Mosshart sang into one microphone, their faces nearly touching. "Just because you caught me, does that make it a sin?" the pair asked, very much wanting the answer to be yes. The only real question -- at least in the make-believe world of the Dead Weather -- is who snared who.