TORONTO - No matter what Jack White does, he knows how to draw a crowd.

Would you believe dozens of people were packed sardine-like around the back of the stage near the front door on Wednesday night at Kool Haus to watch White - best known as the singer-songwriter and guitarist of The White Stripes - go to work on a drum kit as part of his latest side band, The Dead Weather.

White may be trying to stay in the background this time - he only came to the front of the stage a couple of times to take over on lead vocals and magnificently wailed on an electric guitar during Will There Be Enough Water? - but the crowd wanted their rock star fix and got their man, so to speak, even if they had to make do with just looking at the side of him.

He can't help it if he's so damn mesmerizing can he?

Frankly, when he finally came out to play guitar towards the end of the show it came across as an act of liberation for the natural-born performer.

Otherwise, White's latest blues-punk-rock outfit, which also features The Kills' singer Alison Mosshart, guitarist-keyboardist Dean Fertita from Queens Of The Stone Age and bassist Jack Lawrence who plays in White's other side-project The Raconteurs, doesn't pack the same wallop songwise as The Stripes, but the foursome collectively oozed rock star cool and clearly know how to play in a live setting.

Mosshart, in particular, is one sexy siren up on stage, dolled up in a leopard-print coat with oversized puka shells swinging on a chain around her neck while she negotiated climbing across the speakers at the front so the sold-out crowd could get a better look at her.

Her long black bangs masked her porcelain face, making for a sense of mystery, so that only when she tilted her head way back or performed a fierce hair whip, could you see her pretty features.

Returning to Toronto after a last-minute, sold-out gig at the Horseshoe Tavern last month, the band dramatically kicked off their hour-long, 13-song set with 60 Feet Tall from their debut disc, Horehound, released earlier this month.

It was just the right song to start the night off, complete with strobe lights and a black and white photo backdrop culled from Horehound's liner notes, even if followup Bone House didn't quite deliver the same punch.

Better early bets were Hang You From The Heavens, So Far From Your Weapon, and the band's cover of Them's You Just Can't Win, the first song to see White come out from behind the drum kit still holding his drumsticks while he sang, much to the audience's delight.

White was also front and centre for another standout track, I Cut Like A Buffalo, while obscure covers like A Child of a Few Hours Is Burning To Death, by the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, really got the crowd grooving.

Two other memorable covers proved to be Pentagram's Forever My Queen and Bob Dylan's New Pony, both which came during the encore, and The Dead Weather's own Rocking Horse and Treat Me Like Your Mother rounded out the highlights.

White will be back, presumably, in Toronto in September when the documentary about The White Stripes' extensive cross-Canada tour of a few years ago, makes its debut at the film festival.

Maybe he'll even bring Meg White with him and return her to the drum kit, while he takes centre stage on the guitar where he truly belongs.

SET LIST

60 Feet Tall

Bone House

Hang You From The Heavens

You Just Can't Win

So Far From Your Weapon

I Cut Like a Buffalo

A Child of a Few Hours Is Burning To Death

Rocking Horse

No Hassle Night

Will There Be Enough Water?

Encore:

Forever My Queen

Treat Me Like Your Mother

New Pony