When you’re in your little room
And you’re working on something good
But if it’s really good
You’re gonna need a bigger room
And when you’re in the bigger room
You might not know what to do
You might have to think of how you got started
Sitting in your little room
-The White Stripes, “Little Room” (White Blood Cells, 1999)
Jack White has clawed his way from playing little rooms to big rooms. I’ve personally had the chance to see him at a range of venues, from Little Caesars Arena to Detroit’s Masonic Temple. The latter of which was with one of his many side projects, The Raconteurs, as they toured in support of their latest album Help Me Stranger. I was excited to see The Racs bring the noise to the Masonic, a comparatively smaller venue to LCA.
Don’t get me wrong, an arena rock show has its place in the tapestry of rock and roll – I don’t know where I would be in life without KISS – but there’s nothing like a show where the sweat drips from the ceiling and your shoes stick to the floor. Those rooms, like Detroit’s Gold Dollar, are rooms that Jack & Meg White got started in. Like the Mississippi Delta Blues reflected the tired and worn sharecropper, The White Stripes reflected the gritty and raw character of Detroit. For Jack and Meg, it wasn’t long before the rooms got bigger.
While supporting albums like 2018’s “Boarding House Reach,” White was afforded the opportunity to play some of the biggest rooms of his career. The experimental record, not unlike Bob Dylan’s “Empire Burlesque,” marked a significant departure from his signature garage rock sound and steadfast approach to analog recording. Fans on message boards across the internet were appalled that White dared to rap on the album, or that he recorded with an Eddie Van Halen signature guitar. To some, it seemed that White had simply fulfilled the prophecy he laid out on “White Blood Cells.” Perhaps Jack didn’t know how to navigate the bigger room.
Rock critic Steven Hyden wrote of White’s new album, “No Name,” “it’s Jack White in a room with his crackerjack band, playing extremely loud, on a collection of riff-y rock songs that sound like they were written five minutes before they were recorded,” which is probably the highest compliment that a critic could give a Jack White record. Handed out initially as a free, vinyl only release at White’s Third Man Records stores, “No Name” is what Jack White sounded like when he got started sitting in a little room. Listen, “Empire Burlesque” has its place, but sometimes you just gotta rip, and “No Name” absolutely rips.
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The “No Name” tour is a mirror image of the early days as well. It began with what appeared to be a “pop-up show” at St. Andrew’s hall in Detroit on August 5, where Jack and his band were seen (via Instagram) driving a van up to the venue’s back entrance. While Jack White fans eagerly awaited an announcement of an “official tour,” presumably in those aforementioned bigger rooms, White himself announced a date at the Basement East, a 600 capacity venue in Nashville. He also took to Instagram that these small club shows were, in fact, the tour. There will be no arenas, only small clubs. “Shows will be announced as close to the show date as possible, some shows we won’t even decide to do until that morning,” White wrote in the announcement.
As luck would have it, White has announced one of such shows this Sunday, September 1, at Ann Arbor’s premier rock and roll venue: The Blind Pig. The 400 capacity club sold out of tickets almost instantly when they went on sale Wednesday afternoon. If you were lucky enough to get tickets (take me with you!), get there early. You never know what surprises White might have planned.
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