Superstar modern rocker, Jack White, had a very big Friday in his hometown of Detroit. Aside from being the release day for his excellent new solo LP, Fear of the Dawn (review to come), he also performed “The Star-Spangled Banner” for the first time ever (at the Tigers’ opening day game), launched the tour for the album at his favorite hometown venue, and, oh yeah, got engaged and married within about 15 minutes during the concert, surprising and shocking everyone in the audience.
Similar to the launch of The Raconteurs' most recent album era in 2019, White chose to
perform first at Detroit’s Masonic Temple, an amazingly ornate, 98-year-old
building which is said to be the world’s largest Masonic Temple. White’s affinity
for performing there goes back to
childhood memories of running around the venue when his mother was an employee and
undoubtedly attending concerts there in his younger days. Friday’s performance
was White’s 14th time playing the venue with one act or another, and
the 15th came the following night to a second sold-out crowd
(followed by a quick drive to Grand Rapids to perform Sunday night, completing
three Michigan shows during the first three nights of the tour).
As on the tours for his previous solo album and the most recent by The Raconteurs, White has again partnered with Yondr to provide security pouches for all cell phones, taking the no phones policy to a more-extreme degree than Maynard Keenan’s bands, such as Tool and Puscifer, which say security can remove someone from the venue for using their phone during the performance rather than physically restricting phone access. This is unfortunate for his opening acts especially as there is less opportunity for them to have exposure even while being part of a high-profile tour, but to each their own; it’s honestly refreshing to look around a dark audience with no flickering screens or lights every now and then.
Friday’s show began with a short, opening set from SugarTradition, a garage rock combo with music not unlike the general style of TheWhite Stripes and many others, and then a longer set from Olivia Jean, who went from being introduced to those who arrived early enough to see her to being married in front of them in a span of a few hours. Jean’s backing band rocked along with her through mostly up-tempo, original rock songs and a nice cover of Pixie’s “Broken Face” about half-way through.
After the final set change, and anxious crowd enthusiastically welcomed Jack White and his band of extra sharp musicians (both in their attire and their technical abilities) to the Masonic Temple stage. Returning veterans from some of White's previous tours, drummer, Daru Jones; keyboardist, Quincy McCrary; and Detroit native bassist, Dominic Davis, were both well-rehearsed and able to adjust to improvised moments throughout the night with ease. White opened with a powerful one-two punch of “Taking Me Back” and “Fear of the Dawn,” both live debuts and the first two tracks on the new LP, before dipping back into The White Stripes’ “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground,” a song that has been performed many times over the years in the venue. Most in the crowd were engaged throughout, but areas further away from the main floor seemed to wane and vary in energy at different points. Exactly three of the next five songs began with the word, “love,” including a rare cover of U2’s “Love Is Blindness” and the lead single from White’s next album, scheduled for release in July. A spirited rendition of The Dead Weather’s “I Cut Like a Buffalo” was also featured during this portion of the show, but this time around, no other members of The Dead Weather were present to join in as they did during White’s famous Masonic Temple performance for the Lazaretto album in 2014.
The second half of the show was entirely made up of White Stripes and Raconteurs songs, somewhat surprising considering it was a Jack White solo concert and that there were ten or more additional new songs to feature in celebration of releasing the new album from which only two songs were performed. Included among them, a sing along on “We’re Going to Be Friends,” more audience participation during “I’m Slowly Turning into You” (woo!) and the electric blues attack of “Ball and Biscuit,” dedicated to Stripes’ drummer, Meg White. The Raconteurs,’ “You Don’t Understand Me,” sounded almost as sharp as when it is performed by that band, and Friday’s show was White’s first inclusion of it in the set as a solo artist. However, these song choices and arrangements were all by White’s design, as usual, and the audience began to piece things together as the personal events unfolded on stage during the show in progress.
Prior to introducing The White Stripes classic, “Hotel Yorba,” White invited Olivia Jean back to the stage to join him on guitar and vocals. As she was plugging in, White explained she was his girlfriend (for most who didn’t already know) and after duetting nicely on the first two verses and choruses, things changed quickly into the third verse where White sang the first two lines (It might sound silly for me to think childish thoughts like these/but I’m so tired of acting tough, and I’m gonna do what I please) before stopping the song and producing an engagement ring, asking Jean to marry him right in the middle of the verse. The audience erupted with applause as she shockingly agreed, and then the song continued from the point it ended with even more prophetic lyrics that set up the second big surprise of the night (let’s get married in a big cathedral by a priest/’cause if I’m the man that you love the most, you can say, “I do” at least!)
Following a short encore break as the celebratory applause continued, White returned to the stage and next invited his mother, Jean’s father, and a few other family members to the stage along with a priest who then performed a brief but very in-character wedding ceremony (including White leaning into the mic to say, “I do,” three times, exactly). The first words the priest spoke as the short ceremony began were, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life,” quoting Prince’s immortal, “Let’s Go Crazy,” which was certainly an appropriate sentiment for the scene that had unfolded at that moment. Following the wedding and a long standing ovation with plenty of loud, congratulatory applause, White and his band got back to music and capped off the night with The Raconteurs’, “Steady, As She Goes,” another song mentioning marriage and lifestyle changes, and finally, The White Stripes’, “Seven Nation Army,” which at this point includes more people singing along to the melody of the main guitar riff than the actual lyrics themselves. White encouraged this crowd vocalization by asking the band to stop playing as he sang most of the third verse with only the audience’s chanting as an accompaniment.
Overall, Jack White’s tour launch was clearly a highly
successful one, and not only was the performance itself top-notch, well-rehearsed,
and very professionally staged, this show in particular was extra unique due to
the wedding celebration within. Having said that, it is notable that White was
on stage for just under 90 minutes, including the proposal, the encore break,
and the wedding, compared to the following night which contained ten more
songs, and the Grand Rapids show which included seven more than the Friday
show. Clearly, it was a very big, busy, and probably long day for White, so it’s
hard to fault him for keeping things a bit shorter for once, and with good
reason, but when the music is as good as his, there’s always a desire to hear a
few more songs.
Jack White set list:
Taking Me Back
Fear of the Dawn
Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground (The White Stripes)
Love Interruption
Love Is Selfish
I Cut Like a Buffalo (The Dead Weather)
Lazaretto
Love Is Blindness (U2)
We’re Going to Be Friends (The White Stripes)
You Don’t Understand Me (The Raconteurs)
I’m Slowly Turning into You (The White Stripes)
Ball and Biscuit (The White Stripes)
Hotel Yorba (The White Stripes) (+proposal!)
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*Wedding Ceremony*
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Steady, As She Goes (The Raconteurs)
Seven Nation Army (The White Stripes)
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