Jack White Highlights Hues From Throughout His Career At Intimate Brooklyn Show [Photos]

Jack White on Wednesday evening set up shop at Brooklyn, NY’s Brooklyn Steel for the latest in a string of special performances that have extended his lengthy Supply Chain Issues Tour into 2023. Although it was presented in the format of the Detroit native’s ambitious world tour, mounted in 2022 in support of his two new LPs, Fear of the Dawn and Entering Heaven Alive, the buzz around the Brooklyn performance was augmented by a number of unusual situational accoutrements.

The gig had been announced less than two weeks before showtime—popping up after White was revealed as the musical guest on this coming weekend’s Woody Harrelson-hosted episode of Saturday Night Live—and marked one of the last listed shows on Jack’s touring schedule after a busy 2022 on the road. While attendees’ phones being bagged up in Yondr pouches for a screen-free experience wasn’t unusual for the Supply Chain Issues Tour, the room that fans were barred from recording (capacity 1,800) was significantly smaller than the 19,000-cap Barclays Center, where the trek stopped last April on its last swing through Brooklyn. The intimate, immediate nature of the show brought a number of notable names out to enjoy the performance, and White made a point to mention a few by name, including young pop-rock superstar Olivia Rodrigo.

Intrigue aside, the unfettered barrage of chaos-blues/feedback-rock that White summoned throughout the performance was the only story that mattered on Wednesday. With his three-piece backing band (comprised of drummer Daru Jones, bassist Dominic Davis, and keyboardist Quincy McCrary) spread around a stark yet welcoming white mannequin on a riser behind him, Jack White tore through songs from across his catalog over the course of the evening.

Toggling between different guitars as often as he alternated approaches to tone—shrieking maximalism one moment, cleverly inverted negative space the next—White and company touched on the majority of his solo records (all except 2013’s Blunderbuss) alongside various selections from The White Stripes catalog and his post-Stripes bands like The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather.

The aforementioned mannequin served as a guiding light of sorts for the show (and admittedly even tricked me into thinking the band had an extra member for at least the first few songs). The statue was a focal point of the otherwise stark stage setup, glowing a different color to indicate from which creative well each given song was drawn (red for The White Stripes, green for The Raconteurs, yellow for The Dead Weather, and blue for Jack White solo).

While many of the songs played have been in heavy rotation for White, the way in which the set came together assured fans that he was building the show on the fly. He often visibly kept his cohorts on their toes by directing them to slot in various parts like a mad rock conductor or an undead gospel preacher. Shoutouts to influences (like ex-wife Karen Elson and new wife/show opener Olivia Jean) and collaborators (like “Hi-De-Ho” featured artist Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest) were just as easy-going as White’s drawling banter (“We’re going to switch attitudes from A minor to D minor if that’s okay with you,” he cooed as the band moved from The White Stripes’ “Apple Blossom” to Entering Heaven Alive‘s “If I Die Tomorrow”, a song about appreciating running into familiar faces more and more as time passes).

White’s pitch-shifted guitar acrobatics remained at the forefront as the band wound down the main portion of the set with a well-received NYC rendition of “A Madman From Manhattan” and a pair of searing Stripes numbers, “Catch Hell Blues” and “Ball and Biscuit”. The five-song encore capitalized on the momentum of that strong finish. After prepping the Brooklyn crowd for their call-and-response vocal parts, Jack White led them through a thrashing take on The Raconteurs favorite “Steady, as She Goes”, then stuck the landing into an emphatic “Icky Thump”.

Any logical rock and roll show would have ended on that high, but Jack White is a man with an excess of bombastic capabilities—both on his fretboard and within his catalog. He’s a man who has written hits with a slew of outfits in multiple decades, whose calling card is coaxing otherworldly sound out of rudimentary instrumentation, who for years has managed to make his songs say more each time he plays them. And so, knowing all that, the encore charged on with “What’s the Trick”, The White Stripes’ “Blue Orchid”, and a riotous “Seven Nation Army” closer as unique and thrilling as it was inevitable.

Check out the setlist and a selection of photos from the Jack White show at Brooklyn Steel below.

Setlist: Jack White | Brooklyn Steel | Brooklyn, NY | 2/22/23

Set: Taking Me Back, Fear of the Dawn, Hi-De-Ho, Apple Blossom, If I Die Tomorrow, What’s Done Is Done, Hotel Yorba, Fell in Love With a Girl, Lazaretto, I Think I Smell a Rat, I Cut Like a Buffalo, We’re Going to Be Friends, A Tip From You to Me, A Madman From Manhattan, Catch Hell Blues, Ball and Biscuit

Encore: Steady, as She Goes, Icky Thump, What’s the Trick?, Black Orchid, Seven Nation Army

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