good morning!
I wasn’t expecting to see Jack White live on Wednesday night, but there I was, standing on the balcony inside The Atlantis.
It was the third show in Washington in as many nights for White - first at the Black Cat, then at the 930 Club. And at 11am Wednesday, he announced a third show to be played that very night.
For an artist who has sold out huge venues, this tour feels like a tonic and the ideal way for White to reinvent himself. This time as “Johnny Guitar”.
It’s fitting for his new album No Name, which feels so much more like Jack White than the last few records he’s put out. It’s a true blusey, garage-rock record.
And playing at a club that can fit in only 400 or so people seemed an ideal space for White to explore this new record. A true return-to-roots sort of deal.
And he was electric.
For 90 minutes he ripped through song after song, bouncing around the stage. Particular highlights from the new album included That’s How I’m Feeling, It’s Rough on Rats (If You’re Asking), Archbishop Harold Holmes and Where’s the Rumpus? All of them felt like they could fit in much earlier in White’s discogrpahy.
Then jamming out of Broken Boy Soldier into Seven Nation Army? Wow. I didn’t think I’d be less than 50 feet away from the man who created that song.
We got even luckier with a six-song encore, before he finished with Ball and Biscuit.
It was one of the loudest shows I’ve been too - again, packed into a small venue of 400. But you can’t have regrets about that. My ears will still be ringing Thursday morning and it’ll be totally worth it.
Fitzie’s track of the day: Ball and Biscuit, by Jack White
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