Jack White has rarely (if ever) appeared out of place on a stage. From The White Stripes and The Raconteurs, to The Dead Weather and his current solo run, he’s spent the last 30 years rocking arenas and major festivals, all while taking home a dozen Grammys. But there’s something different about Jack White in an intimate room, in front of only his most rabid fans—as has been the case during his ongoing, popup-style tour, including an October stop at the Lodge Room in Los Angeles. Across an hour-long set and an extended encore, the 49-year-old garage rock revivalist looked, played, and sounded like someone who was truly back in his element.
White and his band pulled frequently from his recent release, No Name. After an opening set from Memo PST, they burst out in front of a packed house with “Old Scratch Blues”, “That’s How I’m Feeling”, and a particularly raucous “It’s Rough on Rats (If You’re Asking)”. White went on to drop “Bombing Out” and “What’s the Rumpus?” toward the end of the main set, and returned to his new material in the encore by way of “Archbishop Harold Holmes” and “Underground”.
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Those fresh tracks perfectly reflected the renewed spirit and energy that White brought to the 500-capacity room in Highland Park. No frills. No blue hair or silver suits. No pouches to lock up phones or other attempts to purify the concert experience inside a sanitized musical cathedral. Just raw roots rock for his fervent supporters, presented simply under blue light—along with the occasional mid-set hair combing, to straight out Jack’s black locks.
He gave voice to some of his other standout solo work, including “Fear of the Dawn”, “Lazaretto”, and “Why Walk a Dog?” He also paid respects to The Raconteurs with an encore drop of “Broken Boy Soldiers”.
It wouldn’t have been a proper Jack White performance without at least some of his material from The White Stripes. To that end, he and his mostly Detroit-based band delivered. They sprinkled in “Little Bird”, ended the main set with a rendition of “Black Math” that saw White crowdsurf while wailing on guitar, opened the encore with “The Hardest Button to Button”, and ended the night with attendees hopping, stomping, shouting, and headbanging to “Seven Nation Army”—followed by a call from Jack for an “amen,” hearkening back to his childhood as an altar boy in the Archdiocese of Detroit.
In classic Jack White fashion, there were also some nods to blues and rock history embedded in the set. From Robert Johnson’s “Stones in My Passway” and the Soledad Brothers’ “Goin’ Back to Memphis” to bits of The Doors’ “L.A. Woman”—for the L.A. crowd, of course—the artist and his support properly paid respects to their forebearers, much to the delight of those in attendance.
As much as White’s shows on this tour have been last-second surprises, his sojourn to Southern California could’ve been preordained. After all, he had been scheduled to headline Friday night at Desert Daze in Lake Perris, about 70 miles southeast of the Lodge Room. That is, until that independent festival was canceled due to “rising production costs and the current volatile festival market,” per organizers.
Instead, White and company will continue their romp around small rooms. The only announced dates remaining on his calendar are at Corona Capital in Mexico City and Clockenflap in Hong Kong, both slated for November.
Where Jack White ends up before then is anyone’s guess. Announcements have come mere days before shows via his social media channels. The only certainties are that the rooms in which his band lands will be intimate and jam-packed with Third Man Records subscribers, and that Jack will be obliged to blow them away with the sounds of his roots in Detroit’s underground rock scene.
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