Jack White at Hammersmith Apollo

Jack White
SHIRT
Hammersmith Apollo, 28 June 2018

Back in July 2001 I saw The White Stripes for the first time. It was before they had hit big, although there was a huge buzz about them - they even had articles in the tabloid papers raving about them - so they had sold out the tiny Dingwalls venue in Camden. It was one of the hottest days that year and a lot of people were sitting outside before the show started, including me and my friends. Sitting next to us with his own group of friends was a young Jack White, wearing green (this was when he only wore red and white). He was discussing the latest episode of Brass Eye (it was the infamous "cake" episode) and seemed funny, normal and down to earth. 

Later when he and Meg took to the stage it was explosive, raw and just plain amazing. I remember feeling like I was melting from both the heat and from the music. I still feel hugely privileged to have seen The White Stripes in such an intimate setting and I was lucky enough to see them once more this way, at the Astoria the same year.

After that the band just got huge and, although I still enjoyed their music, the venues got so big I never was enticed to see them again. I think I just couldn't imagine how two people alone on huge stages to huge crowds could match my first experiences of them. So it's taken me 17 years, unbelievably, to see Jack White live again. Thankfully it wasn't at an Arena or a big festival though but the good old Hammersmith Apollo, and I really had no idea of what to expect.

First though there was the support act, a rapper called SHIRT, the first rap act signed to Jack White's Third Man Records label. I actually didn't catch the beginning of his set but I was surprised to see this average looking New York dude in a baggy t-shirt and shorts jumping around the stage. There was a DJ spinning records on the side and a huge white sheet strung up with some words painted on it: I couldn't really read it very well. 

I can't really judge the music that well because it's not really my thing and I only heard about one and a half songs but there weren't too many hooks to keep my interest. At the end SHIRT hung around the stage talking to the audience and shouting things, I assumed because he was going to do another song but then he suddenly walked off the stage. There were a lot of negative comments online about SHIRT's opening set and although not the worst I've seen, as some were saying, to me, he wasn't exactly memorable either.

After SHIRT left, we could finally see how cool the stage looked. There was basically a circle in the middle of the stage where the microphone and Jack White's guitars were set up, then built up around this were the band, with steps all around to reach them. I wondered if White being in this little pit, with the band all looking down on him, might separate him from the band a little but this didn't prove to be true, thankfully, with White constantly running up and down those steps and to each member of the band.

There was also a huge screen behind the stage and while we were waiting a video of White at a console played and when he got up and left, a clock appeared counting down the minutes until he took to the stage (one time White came back to speed up the clock, slow it down before making it right again). It was actually really fun to watch and it was nice to have an artist ready to be so punctual on stage.

I couldn't take any photos of this because unusually this was a no-phone show. White is so against people watching his gigs through their phones he's brought in a policy where your phone is locked in a bag that you carry with you and is unlocked in the lobby. This actually was a fairly easy procedure and worked quite well. In many ways it was nice to not be thinking about my phone, whether for pictures or messages and just enjoy the show. I don't know if it will catch on but it was definitely a success tonight at least.

With the stage bathed in blue (his signature colour for his solo work) and the band already playing, White ran onto the stage like the huge rock star he's become, grabbing a guitar and launching into an instrumental song I didn't know called Battle Cry (turns out it's from the soundtrack to the short film War Cry).

It's such a different experience to hear him with a full band. There's a cool female drummer (of course), a bassist and two keyboard players. Yet White's guitar is always louder than everyone else, front and centre of the sound, making it very much a Jack White show.

He then finally gets singing on recent single Over And Over And Over from his new, very uneven album Boarding House Reach. Live, it sounds noisy, crazy and incredibly exciting. Perhaps he should have recorded the whole album like this.

The rest of the show is an amazing mix of songs from his solo career (mainly the new album and just one from Blunderbluss, the title track) and his other bands over the years including The Dead Weather (I Cut Like A Buffalo), The Raconteurs (Steady As She Goes, which got a huge reaction) and of course lots of The White Stripes!

I can't deny it, it was thrilling to hear all The White Stripes tunes. Hotel Yorba saw him running to back of the stage to play it on an old upright piano giving it a fantastic country hoedown vibe, while My Doorbell had him playing drums on a small kit making it sound brilliantly ramshackle. The most sweet moment though came when he played We're Going To Be Friends, calling over drummer Carla Azar and singing it to her with his arm around her shoulders.

One of the best moments though came with White solo on stage playing his guitar, like in the old days, to play a brilliantly bluesy and raw version of Do from The White Stripes debut album. Even though his band were fantastic it was quite telling that when White was alone on stage he was just as electrifying, if not more so. It certainly made me appreciate just what a unique and magnetic talent he is.

Halfway through the show the band left the stage, returning for nine more songs. I'm not sure if this

was an encore or there was simply a short break because a film played all the time they were gone and back in The White Stripes days he never played encores. Nevertheless, while the band were offstage the audience stomped their feet and sang the riff to Seven Nation Army which was funny and awesome at the same time (it reminded me of seeing Arcade Fire at Brixton Academy and the crowd singing Wake Up as we all left the venue). 

Later, White rewarded the singing crowd with a fantastic version of the Seven Nation Army to end the show, leaving us all humming that famous riff as we went our way out into the night.

I don't think I expected much of this gig, so I was surprised at just how good it was and what an amazing showman White has become (it was also cool to see him use the St. Vincent signature model guitar, in blue, of course).
This was the last night of three sold out shows at the Hammersmith Apollo, so I'm sure White could have played an arena if he had wanted to. But I'm so glad he didn't, because seeing him in a theatre like this but with such an unusual stage, great visuals and a world class band, really was something special.

Live photos by David James Swanson