By the time the floorboards at the Hollywood Palladium stopped shaking on the second Tuesday night in May, one thing was clear: Jack White didn’t just play the second show of his L.A. return—he exorcised it.
This was night two of his No Name tour stop in L.A., and a whole lot had changed since his intimate, sweat-soaked shows at Highland Park’s Lodge Room last October. Back then, Jack and his band played to a 500-person congregation, packed tight and face-melting. Now, there were 4,000 screaming fans slamming into each other in one of L.A.’s most storied rooms. Somehow, Jack made it feel just as personal.
He came out swinging, all twitchy energy and blue-flamed bravado. The intro jam had the crowd chanting “Hey!” like they were summoning a punk-rock demon, and the man of the hour wasted no time feeding the frenzy.
“Old Scratch Blues” roared in next, full of pure garage chaos with a dirty fuzz riff, more “Hey!” chants, and Jack egging the crowd on with wild-eyed energy. Then, just to let everyone know they were there for a damn show, he launched into a throat-punch cover of “I Wanna Be Your Dog” by The Stooges. Suddenly, the floor wasn’t a floor anymore. It was a mosh pit soaked in Detroit grease and feedback.
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Jack muttered with a grin about quiet crowds at big arenas before “That’s How I’m Feeling”, another cut from 2024’s No Name album. The Palladium roared back like a punk choir, ready to bleed.
From there, it was a rollercoaster of jackknife guitar riffs, organ freakouts, and oh-my-god-did-he-just transitions. “Black Math” (a White Stripes grenade) hit early and hard, followed by “Bombing Out”, which served double-duty as a jam session and guitar switch pit stop, Jack coolly swapping to a plugged-in acoustic without breaking stride.
On “It’s Rough on Rats (If You’re Asking)”, Jack delivered each vocal line like a man possessed, jerking back and forth from the mic as if the words themselves were too hot to handle. Then it was back into Stripes territory for “Let’s Build a Home”, driven by a crunchy organ solo that belonged in a haunted honky-tonk.
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“What’s the Rumpus?” had the crowd clapping on command, and then came “High Ball Stepper”, a volcanic instrumental that felt like a swamp blues exorcism inside a broken-down amplifier. Jack squawked, stomped, howled. The place went feral.
The main set closed with the screeching phone-call chaos of “Hello Operator”, followed by the dirty groove of “I Cut Like a Buffalo”, during which White handed his guitar to the organist and took over the keys himself.
After a brief respite, he returned with the crowd already begging, launching into another “Hey!”-powered jam as he introduced the band—including a nod to his Raconteurs drummer, Patrick Keeler—and referred to himself, hilariously and accurately, as “Johnny Guitar.”
Then came “Steady, As She Goes”, a groove-heavy masterclass in tension and release, with Jack messing around on guitar while the crowd chanted, “Are you steady now?” like it was a sermon. The back-and-forth between keys and guitar turned the room into a twisted dancehall.
Things got spiritual with the new-ish “Archbishop Harold Holmes”, then demonic with a raging “Ball and Biscuit”, spliced with a nod to Tampa Red’s “You Can’t Get That Stuff No More”. White’s solo here was pure fuzzed-out sorcery—fingers flying, sweat pouring, the band backing him like a train about to derail.
“Icky Thump” kept the gas pedal pinned, with the crowd headbanging like it was 2007 all over again. Then came the inevitable, thunderous closing note: “Seven Nation Army”. That iconic bass line rang out like a battle cry. Arms raised, voices shot, the crowd screamed along like the ghosts of rock and roll’s past had all crawled up through the floorboards.
With the show at its end, Jack stood at the edge of the stage, eyes scanning the chaos, hair soaked. “You are so incredible,” he said, almost disbelieving.
From the Lodge Room to the Palladium, Jack White’s L.A. return proved that size doesn’t change the soul. His second lap through the city in less than a year found him tighter, meaner, more explosive—a blues-punk prophet with no need for nostalgia, only raw connection.
For nearly 90 minutes, he gave the audience everything: screeching solos, crowd chants, organ freakouts, a Stooges cover, and a lesson in how to absolutely own a stage without playing by anyone’s rules.
More than a concert, it was a blistered, bombastic, boot-stomping revival. And in the Church of Jack White, every “Hey!” was a hallelujah.
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