The White Stripes can be credited with a lot. Aside from saving rock and roll music for a generation tamed and lobotomised by TV punk and designer sports metal they also seem to have proved the dispensability of the bass guitar to a generation of imitators (think Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Kills).

Whirlwind Heat are here to redress the balance. Identically dressed in skinny t-shirts and tight trousers they are guitarless but twisting, thrusting and throbbing with the kind of sexiness which can only come from a deep, thundering bass. As with a lot of stripped down, bare bones rock and roll the musical limitations are on open display and also like their peers they have to make up for it through the passion and energy of their performance. From the word "go" the bass is swinging in wild arcs, hips are writhing in jerky yet snakelike motions and highly immoral things are being done to innocent moogs. They climax with an epic ten minute freakout incorporating numerous instrument-swapping, simulated bull-fighting with a tambourine and a banana-throwing contest. Aside from a half-hearted cover of an obscure Beck song however, the music is forgotten before the audience has even reached the bar.

Jack White stalks onstage as if in a hurry to reach the safety of his guitar before the screams and applause of the audience can do irreparable damage to his delicate artistic soul. He immediately rips into "Black Math", eyes hiding behind his lank black perm, and sets the crowd jumping for the stars. It doesn't really let up from there either.

The beautiful and glorious thing about The White Stripes is that, unlike many of their aforementioned imitators, they don't have a single song, from the fuzzed up garage thrash of their eponymous debut to the strangely sinister yet gently melodic "We're Going To Be Friends", which doesn't already sound like a fully licensed classic. Accusations of musical Luddism are finding it increasingly hard to stick as their musical palette continues to evolve, the awesome "The Hardest Button To Button" seamlessly integrating a Nirvana riff and a motorik Queens Of The Stone Age beat into the mysterious world in which Jack and Meg live.

The world that they've built from themselves, while unquestionably a refuge from the unpleasantness of the outside world, is not the insulated cocoon that some would have us believe. It's a reaction against the superficiality and moral decay that they perceive around them, most clearly represented in the spitting disgust of "I Think I Smell A Rat". Things aren't that simple however. Jack White has at least two faces, one of them is the morally outraged, emotionally taut jilted lover/social observer who sings "The Union Forever" and "Truth Doesn't Make A Noise", the other is a camp music hall performer, part Cruella DeVille and part David Bowie as he appeared in the film "Labyrinth" if Jack's revealingly tight leggings are anything to go by, who struts across the stage, lip curled back, half passionate, half sneering with contempt. He is a complex and intriguing star in a musical landscape populated by stage-school Jagger wannabes, pop idol game-show winners and fake-tortured soft-macho metal try-hards.

For all Jack's thrashing and screaming though, the wildest reaction of the night is saved for Meg as she tiptoes out from behind her drum kit to sing the eerie and sexy "In The Cold, Cold Night". She is the sea of calm at the centre of the band, bashing away at her drums, hand on hip, behind long black hair and a secret smile as Jack howls his bleeding heart out into her face.

They keep the audience shouting and clapping for what seems like months before returning for an encore, climaxing with a fierce "Seven Nation Army". Jack seems dissatisfied with the performance as they take their final bow but he shouldn't. At a time when the rock and roll gospel is reaching out across the world in a way it hasn't done since the 60's he's just given Japan a masterclass. -Ian Martin, Oct.27.04