Jack White has released an impressive seven LPs since 2012, including Frozen Charlotte and No Name in the last two years alone. Just over a third of tonight’s set was drawn from those recent releases.
However, despite there being no significant anniversary to mark, White also reached back to 1999 and The White Stripes’ debut album, performing “Cannon” and “I Fought Piranhas”. Dressed in black, backed by his three-piece band and with the volume turned up to eleven, White set out to prove that he remains worthy of the praise he has long received for his guitar playing.
He opened the set with an instrumental jam, immediately demonstrating his deft guitar skills. The stage was adorned with a quirky-looking statue with a blue skull head and white loincloth, bearing an uncanny resemblance to the aliens in Mars Attacks!, but it was White’s performance and his ability to galvanise the sold-out Eventim Apollo that stole the show.
Elation soared further with “Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground”, the classic, mandatory head-banging anthem that opened The White Stripes’ White Blood Cells. It went down so well that the song was later reprised.
The song played between the two versions was an early White Stripes B-side, emotional for two reasons: it had not been played since 2007, and the person who wrote it and made it famous had recently passed. The song was Dolly Parton’s “Jolene”. White’s raw emotion and passion made for a fitting tribute to the country music legend, while also giving the Eventim Apollo an unexpected treat.
White also delivered suitably guitar-loaded versions of Rosetta Howard & The Harlem Hamfats’ “Delta Bound” and Hank Williams’ “My Bucket’s Got A Hole In It”.
Of the newer songs, the ones that stood out most were the youthful “That’s How I’m Feeling” and “Archbishop Harold Holmes”. Actor John C. Reilly perfected the music video for the latter, but it was White and his bandmates, including Bobby Emmett, whose names were illuminated in lights, who brought the song fully to life on stage.
White also included material from The Raconteurs. The crowd’s elated response to “Steady, As She Goes” and “Broken Boy Soldier” proved that his project with Brendan Benson, Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler was far more than a vanity jam session.
As well as demonstrating outstanding, world-class musicality, White also mastered the order of play. Before the encore, he left the crowd with “Derecho Demónico”. Like The White Stripes’ “Ball And Biscuit”, it had added sophistication, along with a deft use of organ that “Ball And Biscuit” itself did not possess.
The band’s return to the stage was perfected with The White Stripes’ “Icky Thump”. White did not need to prompt, let alone sing, the song’s famous “la” section, which the crowd delivered enthusiastically for him.
White finished the set in the only way that would have been deemed acceptable to his fans: with “Seven Nation Army”. While many, including Hard-Fi, have made worthy attempts to cover it, White proved that no one is likely to master his original version.
Apart from the absence of some of his quieter ballads, such as “We’re Going To Be Friends”, later turned into a beautiful children’s book, and “You’ve Got Her In Your Pocket”, White impressed throughout. Without nonsensical, verbose dialogue, he delivered an awesome rock show that confirmed his world-class guitar virtuoso status.
