A wise Stripe

AT a time when many of our most prized bands are relying chiefly in concert on songs 30 or more years old, it was exhilarating Monday at the Greek to be wowed by tunes written less than seven months ago.

In fact, the only complaint about the White Stripes’ captivating performance was that the duo didn’t do more from its challenging new album, “Get Behind Me Satan.”

Who else would go through a 90-minute show without even plugging -- er, playing -- their latest?

But singer-guitarist Jack White has never surrendered to rock ‘n’ roll convention. He’s such a spontaneous performer that he probably didn’t even realize when he walked off stage that he hadn’t performed that sing-along single “My Doorbell.”

This may have been White’s first L.A. concert since his recent marriage to model Karen Elson, but his heart still belongs to rock ‘n’ roll.

When he and drummer Meg White walked on stage after a taut, satisfying set by the roots-leaning Greenhornes trio, a spotlight directed the audience’s attention to a large mural at the rear of the stage.

The painting was a scene right out of Adam and Eve: that tempting apple, placed in a paradise setting, just waiting for some mortal to come along and take that forbidden bite.

The mural underscored one of the chief themes of the “Satan” album: the struggle between innocence and betrayal in relationships.

In fact, there are times, especially in “Blue Orchid,” when you can almost feel someone taking a bite out of that apple as Jack White sings about the loss of innocence.

On stage, the Stripes stretched the theme of the mural and album to reflect on the ever-present tension between rock ‘n’ roll integrity and compromise.

When the Detroit native pledged “No, I’m never gonna let you down” during “The Nurse” midway through the set, he seemed to be speaking as much about being true to his music as to a loved one.

The narrator in the “Satan” songs has seen so much betrayal and compromise in life and in music that he is wary.

In the show’s darkest moment Monday, Jack White sat alone at the piano at the start of the encore and sang “I’m Lonely (But I Ain’t That Lonely Yet).” It’s a country-flavored tune that includes some alternately tender and wickedly funny lines about almost overpowering need.

Eventually, the character in the song gets to a point so painful that suicide seems like the most comforting step:

I go down to the river

Filled with regret

I go down and I wonder

If there was any reason left.

Yet the character rebounds, underscoring an essential optimism that runs through most of the White Stripes’ catalog.

In his dazzling guitar work and his passionate singing on his heavily blues-based rock, White clings to the possibility in every life for redemption and change.

When White and his “sister” (as he calls his former wife) left the stage for the evening, the spotlight again went on the apple, still gloriously whole.

True enough, in just four years the Stripes have gone from playing local clubs to headlining four nights at the 6,000-plus-seat Greek Theatre without surrendering their ideals. Yet they have lost none of their sense of a rock ‘n’ roll mission.

Like a quarterback calling an audible at the line of scrimmage, White turns the stage into a working laboratory, reaching for whatever seems to fuel his imagination at the moment, whether it’s one of his songs or one of Dolly Parton’s old tales of romantic desperation. Meg’s unadorned drumming adds an essential warmth and human dimension to Jack’s virtuosity.

Aside from his falsetto-edged vocals, White’s chief weapon is his electric guitar, which he plays like a man obsessed. To get the desired emotion, White makes the instrument wail, howl, purr, shriek, convulse and seduce -- sometimes during the same eight bars.

If White had come along in the ‘60s, you could have pictured him going through what once seemed radical moves for guitarists, including setting the instrument on fire or smashing it to bits on the stage.

But those actions have been cliches for so long that he has to turn to new devices to maintain his edge. So he took the radical step in most of the new album of simply ignoring the guitar.

To better frame the tender emotions in some songs, White turned to piano and even, in the case of “The Nurse,” to marimba.

Some Stripes fans have been a little uneasy about the move to keyboards, but the audience on Monday embraced those gentler numbers mightily.

White remains a guitar-slinger at heart, delivering blistering versions Monday of such powerhouse rockers as “Seven Nation Army” and “The Hardest Button to Button.”

But his courage in following his instincts in the new album and on the new tour stands as the greatest proof of his own integrity and power.

Hilburn, pop music critic of The Times, may be reached at Robert.Hilburn@latimes.com.

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The White Stripes

Where: Greek Theatre, 2700 N. Vermont Canyon Road, L.A.

When: 7:30 p.m. today through Thursday

Price: $45

Contact: (323) 665-1927