Jack White
The Troxy, London, March 1, 2025
On February 8 this year, Jack White posted a longish piece on Instagram. Ostensibly, he addressed complaints that the sets on his current tour should be longer; a churlish criticism, perhaps, when they’ve been averaging out at a solid 90 minutes. What the post turned into, though, was a characteristically impassioned pitch for the electric connectivity of a simple rock gig, as opposed to a stadium spectacle. Taylor Swift might take three hours to cover off her Eras, was a possible subtext; Jack White can do that in half the time, on a whim. “There's no setlist, and it's not a Marvel movie, or a Vegas residency,” he wrote. “It's rock and roll and it's a living breathing organism.”
For a quarter of a century now, it’s been repeatedly tempting to posit Jack White as a defender of rock’s foundational values – a risky strategy that places him at odds with contemporary pop and can lead to snobbishness, Luddism and worse (and which undersells his own capacity for reinvention and innovation). Nevertheless, on a night in London where the performers at the Brit Awards are popularly measured by their stage sets, costumes and ability to fly above the stage, White’s vigorously back-to-basics approach feels like a statement of its own.
When he repeatedly announces, “Every single word that comes out of my mouth tonight is going to be the truth,” what he’s talking about isn’t the literal truth as such – unless he really is named “Johnny Guitar, from Hackney” – it’s about a perceived authenticity of musical performance and experience. About 90 minutes of guitar pyrotechnics rather than actual fireworks. Robert Johnson and Stooges covers. A selection of hits and rarities from the 21st century’s deepest rock catalogue, and a few new ones from No Name, an album that stands with the very best of his work.
If White’s guerilla shows in the UK last September pivoted on those No Name songs, now fresh classics like Archbishop Harold Holmes, It's Rough On Rats (If You're Asking) and Tonight (Was A Long Time Ago) seem naturally embedded in wide-ranging sets, and Underground can slide beautifully out of an old White Stripes nugget like Screwdriver. White’s guitar-playing in recent years has sometimes favoured a shrill, staccato tone for solos, but tonight it’s centred on a kind of furious fluidity. The Jimmy Page comparison is a familiar one, but perhaps it’s another Yardbird, Jeff Beck, that he’s closer to on this form; a wild and ornate heaviness where the intricacy seems to be rendered effortlessly on, say, Broken Boy Soldiers or I Cut Like A Buffalo.
Both of those songs are stretched out without ever dropping in intensity, and this incarnation of White is keener on elaboration, improvisation and jamming than previous ones. Cannon has long accommodated other songs into its crude structure, but here a great chunk of I Wanna Be Your Dog lands in its middle. Black Math, more feral than ever, hurtles straight into Love In Vain Blues, one of a clutch of Robert Johnson tunes that White has been returning to of late, with the fervour of a new convert rather than a lifetime scholar.
In all of this, he’s assisted by a band set out in a semi-circle behind him, giving him the space to spin around, thickening the sound into a relentless wall of noise. Keyboardist Bobby Emmett, with the hair and shades of ? from The Mysterians, is the relative new boy alongside vets Dominic Davis (bass) and Patrick Keeler (drums). But he often plays more like Jon Lord, adding churchy bass tones beneath the squall. White joins him on keys once, for a stabby, baroque honky-tonk version of Apple Blossom – not the only time that an old White Stripes song is toughened up: You're Pretty Good Looking (For A Girl) turns out to be far more of a garage rock ramalam in this incarnation than it ever was back in the day.
Still, the narrative around No Name and White’s current manoeuvres as a return to garage rock feels pretty reductive when the reality is bigger, stranger, more complex but no less raw than that. Like any sensible artist, White has always distanced himself from being promoted as a saviour of rock’n’roll. But if we ever do need one, gigs like this are as good an argument for his candidacy as you’ll find.
On the same day as White’s gig, Jimmy Page posted an impassioned piece on Instagram, too, taking aim at AI and its threat to “the irreplaceable magic of human artistry.” “Music is not a product of data,” Page wrote. “It is an evocation, a defiance of logic, a collision of time and place and soul.” As a manifesto for Jack White live in 2025, it's hard to think of a better one.
SET LIST
1. Intro Jam
2. Old Scratch Blues
3. That's How I'm Feeling
4. Black Math
5. Love In Vain Blues
6. It's Rough On Rats (If You're Asking)
7. Apple Blossom
8. Love Interruption
9. Broken Boy Soldier
10. You're Pretty Good Looking (For A Girl)
11. Hello Operator
12. Cannon/ I Wanna Be Your Dog
13. High Ball Stepper
14. I Cut Like A Buffalo
ENCORE
15. Encore Jam
16. Steady, As She Goes
17. Freedom At 21
18. Archbishop Harold Holmes
19. Tonight (Was A Long Time Ago)
20. I'm Slowly Turning Into You
21. Screwdriver
22. Underground
23. Seven Nation Army