Following virtually every Jack White show, his website posts a selection of concert pictures taken that night by his in-house photographer, David James Swanson, and occasionally they’ll throw in a crowd shot. After Friday night’s gig at the Mayan in downtown Los Angeles, the pictures posted online included one of a fan toward the front of the crowd holding up a handmade sign asking for a setlist. That had to have been thrown in as an inside joke, because as most non-newbies in this setting would know … setlist, schmetlist. Any given night of Jack White is going to be a full evening of audibles, with any song menu being something that’s cobbled together by fans, after the last play is called.
This year, for the first time, that’s kind of the way White is approaching his tour itineraries. On his social media recently, a fan asked if the rocker would be coming to their town, and White responded by saying that he picks where he’s going next by by going to the airport and seeing who has the next flight out. That’s a gag— booking shows obviously takes a little more foresight than deciding whether “Hotel Yorba” will make for a smooth set segue — but he’s sure doing a good job of at least making it look like that kind of itinerant romanticizing is at play in where and when he picks to play. He’s been announcing shows in different cities just two or three days before performing them, but he felt the need to eventually clarify that, as far as he’s concerned, these aren’t “pop-up” shows… this is the tour behind the “No Name” album. They’re all taking place in clubs or small theaters, so with demand obviously outstripping supply, hitting “buy” at just the right moment really can be the hardest button to button.
White’s Friday night show at the Mayan, capacity 2,500, was preceded by a Thursday gig at Highland Park’s Lodge Room, which holds 500. Fans who were at one L.A. concert or the other will like to brag they got the true FOMO experience, but those of us who were fortunate to see both can attest that it was a happy draw. He did 20 songs each night, exactly half of which overlapped. Even with that identical number, the Mayan got the longer set, by 15 minutes — an hour and 45 versus an hour and a half. Neither one was going to compared to his epic, tour-ending show right next door to the Mayan at the Belasco in January 2023, but both of these mid-tour L.A. stops were non-stop, sweat-soaked and proficiently frantic enough to feel more than sufficiently draining for any normal human person.
The Lodge Room show ended with “Seven Nation Army,” while he forewent that signature song to close at the Mayan with his Raconteurs perennial “Steady, as She Goes.” (Many White fans like to believe they’re at a special show if he doesn’t play “Seven Nation Army,” as if he has recognized that they are a crowd that doesn’t require the most obvious payoff to go home happy. They’re probably reading too much into it. But it did strike me, driving into the show and listening to the Dodgers’ playoff game on the radio, that the crowd over at the stadium had already been singing that song’s world-famous riff. And so maybe White — notorious baseball fan that he is — had also been tuned in to the ballgame and figured the song had already been sufficiently covered that night. See, I can read too much into things, too.)
He crowd-surfed at the Lodge Room, and not at the vaster Mayan, maybe because there was a longer path to get back if the audience didn’t immediately hand him back. The Lodge Room also got a possibly first-time cover of the Doors’ “L.A. Woman” as the lead-in to the extended encore segment, although White spent at least as much time doing his falsetto howl as he did actually quoting Jim Morrison. But then, only the Mayan got a couple of semi-bold-face-name guest stars, first in the form of Money Mark (of Beastie Boys fame) coming out as a second keyboard player for “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground,” then with Carla Azar (formerly of White’s band) taking the stool as guest drummer on the finale to the main set, “I’m Slowly Turning Into You.” The drum set seemed to fall apart as Azar left the stage, without her kicking it, in some kind of spontaneous combustion, as if it were only built to handle one powerhouse percussionist a night. (It was Patrick Keller’s shoes she was filling, for a few jam-happy minutes.)
Something else both L.A. audiences got: a Donald Trump impersonation, with White taking his hands off the guitar long enough to do an accordion-hands impression of his very least favorite politico. He’s never exactly been a Trump fan, but he really took umbrage on his Instagram account when the candidate went to his hometown of Detroit this week and disparaged the whole city to its face. White got his revenge at the Lodge Room by taking time out from the mock-evangelistic rap of “Archbishop Harold Holmes” to ramble a bit about “I always tell the truth; I don’t know how not to tell the truth.” Getting even more overtly Trumpian at the Mayan, he led the crowd in a call-and-response shout of: “They’re eating the cats! They’re eating the dogs! They’re eating the pets!”
So this covers some of the minutiae of these two L.A. shows. What hasn’t been covered in this recounting, up till now, is how either and both of them made you feel, which is… like rock ‘n’ roll never died, like it was never on life support, like the flame had never even flickered. So in a climate where the burner is dim indeed, and where some of us turn into poptimists partly because there is no viable rock alternative, a show like one of these can keep your gas flame lit for a whole ‘nother year all by itself.
The same can be said for “No Name,” which is really all the newly recorded rock ‘n’ roll anyone needs for the 2024 calendar year. However unpredictable the composition of his shows has otherwise been, White can be counted on to do about seven songs from the new album per night, including “Old Scratch Blues” and “That’s How I’m Feeling” in the Nos. 1-2 slots, and “It’s Rough on Rats (If You’re Asking)” usually in the third or fourth position, before all other plans go off the rails. And it feels safe to say that, unlike most concerts that showcase new material, there is not a fan in the crowd who regrets the inclusion of any of these new songs — even if they haven’t gotten around to picking up the new record. Each one of them feels as utterly familiar as the White Stripes and early solo songs that surround them. People have sometimes wondered if White has reached the stage in his career where he counts as “classic rock,” and the answer to that is a qualified yes, as long as we’re counting “No Name” as an actual part of his ongoing imperial phase. Good luck finding anyone else remotely of his ilk you can say that about here in the mid-2020s.
Making a list of highlights, I realize how many of them come from the new album, and how many of them seemed to offer some kind of new spin not just on stuff he’s done before but that the masters had done before. Take “Archbishop Harold Holmes”: With or without a little bit of election-year comedy thrown in live, it basically sounds like a metal song with a preacherly rap over the top of it that suddenly, when the song is taken over by a more basic guitar riff, turns into “Happenings Ten Years Time Go,” or something like it. “That’s How I’m Feeling” and “What’s the Rumpus?” have both joined the set as songs that start off with a strong bass line (played by Dominic Davis), foreshadowing the eventual appearance of “Steady, as She Goes,” if it’s coming. There’s no jamming, just ramming, in the two-and-a-half-minute blast of punk that is ”Bombing Out.”
But there may be no greater standouts in the show than when White pulls out the slide guitar and does otherworldly things with it, as in “It’s Rough on Rats,” and the reapparance of that vibe in the encore segment with “Underground.” Either of these numbers are redolent of Led Zeppelin, but the bluesy, deep-album-cut version of Led Zeppelin… and with White assuming the roles of both a peeling Jimmy Page and squealing Robert Plant.
Watching White reclaim his title as 21st century rock’s lord and savior, you wish everybody could witness it… and he does just enough bills-paying festival dates that maybe everybody who really wants to can. But it’s hard to understate the excitement of this kind of seemingly spur-of-the-moment, low-capacity gigging. It flies in the face of the delayed gratification of modern touring, which maybe has taken you aback if you’ve been opening email notices for concerts going on sale that are set to take place in late October… late October of 2025, that is. Urgency is White’s thing, whether it’s releasing the first copies of “No Name” without telling anybody, or putting up gigs and barely warning anybody. Maybe there’s something about the national or global mood that makes living in the moment feel more vital than ever. Anyway, there is a name that can be put to the “No Name” ethos: thrilling.
Setlist for Jack White at the Lodge Room, Highland Park, Calif., Oct. 10, 2024:
Old Scratch Blues
That’s How I’m Feeling – bass riff
It’s Rough on Rats (If You’re Asking) – chimey slide into Led Zep blues
Stones in My Passway (Robert Johnson cover)
Little Bird
Why Walk a Dog?
Goin’ Back to Memphis (Soledad Brothers cover)
Cannon
John the Revelator
Bombing Out
What’s the Rumpus?
Broken Boy Soldier
Black Math
(encore)
L.A. Woman (Doors cover)
The Hardest Button to Button
Archbishop Harold Holmes
Lazaretto
Fear of the Dawn
Underground
Seven Nation Army
Setlist for Jack White at the Mayan, Los Angeles, Calif., Oct. 11, 2024
I Wanna Be Your Dog/Old Scratch Blues
That’s How I’m Feeling
It’s Rough on Rats (If You’re Asking)
Phonograph Blues (Robert Johnson cover)
Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground
Bombing Out
Fell in Love With a Girl
Love Interruption
Hotel Yoba
What’s the Rumpus?
I’m Slowly Turning Into You
(encore)
Archbishop Harold Holmes
Goin’ Back to Memphis (Soledad Brothers cover)
Cannon
Icky Thump
Underground
Catch Hell Blues
Broken Boy Soldier
Steady, as She Goes
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