Jack White, First Direct Arena, Leeds
- Written by Carris Boast
Ablaze in a stage of white, dressed in his usual 1940’s gangster attire, strapped firmly to a guitar, Jack White enters. The first thing he plays is straight off his new album Lazaretto, ‘High Ball Stepper’ tumbles straight into ‘Lazaretto’ before calmly speaking “Leeds, hello” to the crowd. A small white TV sits centre stage showing a static picture throughout.
Strangely for an arena venue, there were no large screens to aid the viewing potential for the people sitting in the far back row. Maybe they weren’t working? Maybe the black curtain forgot to fall down? Or maybe White chose not to have a camera in his face showing the sweat drip from every pore to the thousands that fill the Leeds arena. The latter, would be more interesting. The seats shake as White bursts into ‘Blunderbuss’ and ‘Just One Drink’, his voice curds and cracks as he sings through his gritted teeth, “You drink water, I drink gasoline”.
Like an enormous thunderclap White rattles through songs taken from The White Stripes, The Raconteurs and his own back catalogue. It is a shame that no tracks from The Dead Weathers' past two albums featured, although the newly built Leeds arena roof may have shattered due to noise produced by ‘Hang you from the Heavens’.
Jack White speaks very little, only to engage the crowd in further erratic behaviour. Various pits open up on the floor. Bodies and flailing arms make the standing crowd look like a box of fishing worms, squirming along to the vibrations built by White's electrifying aptitude.
The lights flash over the crowd in a Spanish fan like pattern, revealing their bobbing heads and applauding hands. The two hour long set explodes into a dramatic encore. A White Stripe favourite ‘Icky Thump’ soars out of White’s guitar and into the faces of the hospitable audience. Another wounding blow hits them as ‘Steady, As She Goes’ is played back to back with ‘The Black Bat Licorice’. Trailing the outro into a deeper grown, Jack White stretches his guitar over his head and wails into the mic, teasing the anticipating crowd.
When it comes to big, successful artists such as Jack White, everyone knows that popular song will appear at some point. It would be like the Rolling Stones not playing ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, or Arctic Monkeys not playing that one about dancing. The Leeds crowd know what is coming next; they know what track is going to end this spectacle. The lights go dark and a rumble of “dur dur dur dur dur dur” rises from the raucous audience, even before Jack White plays that familiar note. ‘Seven Nation Army’ forces the seated to their feet; the chants continued to build which sounds like a rowdy football match. Jack White’s hypnotic demeanour and rock and roll stance brings the arena to its knees. Leaving the audience with ringing in their ears, his guitar left slumped and a whole load of static behind him, he exits stage left.