An intimate Beck concert at Nashville’s Basement East on Monday took a wild turn when Jack White showed up as the opener. The former White Stripes frontman took over the stage, treating audiences to snippets of Chumbawamba and Proclaimers songs.
As audiences eagerly awaited Beck, White instead appeared onstage. Picking up an acoustic guitar, he introduced himself saying, “Hello ladies and gentlemen, I’m Beck. I’m gonna play you one of my favorite Beck songs from the 1990s that I wrote.”
Rather than launching into one of Beck’s many celebrated hits of the past three decades, White instead opted for a different hit from the 1990s in Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping”. When that didn’t seem to get the people moving, the guitarist segued into the Proclaimers’ own 1988 chart-topper, “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)”.
The record scratch moment then arrived as Beck finally arrived onstage.
“What are you doing, Jack?” Beck asked, with White responding that he was simply tuning the guitar. “You asked for some nail clippers. I went out to my car to get them, I come back and you’re playing my show.”
View this post on Instagram
Rolling Stone notes that this is a running gag between the two musicians, as White previously surprised fans at a 2014 Beck show in Rhode Island. During that concert, Beck introduced White as “the best bartender in the world,” before welcoming him on the encore “Pay No Mind”, “Loser”, and “Where It’s At”, the latter of which also featured Sean Lennon, who opened the show with The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger.
White is currently gearing up for the release of his first of two albums of 2022, Fear of the Dawn, out on April 8th via his Third Man Records. Four months later, he will release Entering Heaven Alive on July 22nd. The release of Fear of the Dawn will coincide with the kick-off of The Supply Chain Issues tour on April 8th in Detroit. For tickets and a full list of tour dates visit his website.