TORONTO - The way Jack White is going, in five years he might have enough bands to be his own touring festival.

White, the singer/guitarist for The White Stripes, spent the last few years as a member of The Raconteurs, a "super group" featuring Brendan Benson and members of the Greenhornes.

But now the musician has another project on the go called The Dead Weather, once which debuted in Nashville back in March. And if the group's last-minute, sold-out gig (and Toronto debut) at the cozy Horseshoe Tavern is a measuring stick, White is still delivering his signature blues rock sound, albeit with a defter, feminine touch thanks to the sassy, sexy, moxie oozing from The Kills' singer Alison Mosshart.

For the majority of the roughly 70-minute, 13-song set, Mosshart was front and center with White content to literally and figuratively take a back seat and play drums. Only during Will There Be Enough Water? did White come out and shine on guitar, singing with Mosshart on one microphone during the heavy, bluesy number.

And while there were a few songs which seemed a tad lighter, The Dead Weather sounded far closer to The White Stripes than the more refined sound of The Raconteurs. Whether it was the slow-building opener 60 Feet Tall that Mosshart nailed or the garage-ish Treat Me Like Your Mother, the primal, meaty sound was fleshed out thanks to guitarist Dean Fertita (Queens Of The Stone Age) and Greenhornes/The Raconteurs bassist Jack Lawrence.

The 60's rock aura was one of the main threads to the sound, especially when The Dead Weather opted to cover Them's You Just Can't Win in a rather murky, creepy kind of way. Bob Dylan's New Pony also came off quite well as the sweaty Mosshart seemed to lose herself in the song.

That's not to say that everything came off spectacular. The Doors-like Rocking Horse had a lighter feel throughout most of it and didn't quite come together. But when its bookends were the bouncy, more rock, less blues ditty Child Of A Few Years and the groovy I Cut Like A Buffalo, it was definitely the rare exception to what was otherwise a very above average norm.

Other highlights included the encore-opening Forever My Queen that was loud and bruising as well as the somewhat sultry beginning to Hang You From The Heavens which is one of the cuts getting airplay on radio and on YouTube.

If you didn't catch them this time around, don't worry as The Dead Weather will be back next month at the Kool Haus as part of their proper North American tour support Horehound which is slated for a mid-July release.

Opening for The Dead Weather was Hollerado, a band White personally picked after hearing their songs on MySpace. The band's 45-minute warm-up was rife with Weezer-like hooks which slowly won the crowd over.

Sun Rating: 4 out of 5