But it's a fact that I'm the seventh son
Before I get into my Jack White concert report, I wanted to share this, from a review of Blunderbuss (in reference to “Weep Themselves To Sleep”):
The melody’s mostly monotonous, but Jack pumps it with gallons of swagger. The drums would make Meg White proud, the way they sucker-punch the groove. Jack’s solo slaughters, especially on headphones, since actually it’s two solos played simultaneously in separate channels, which sound like a couple of Tesla coils deciding whether they should fuck.
BEST. DESCRIPTION. EVER. That is some badass music reviewing.
Anyway. ON TO THE WEEKEND’S ADVENTURES.
Before the show even happened, I'd already had an AMAZING weekend with desfinado (despite the sore throat/cold that I woke up with on Friday; SO UNCOOL, but I had a great time anyway! HA. Weekend: 1, Cold: 0). I got to tour her beautiful, fascinating place of work, and we went out for delicious food, and made our own delicious food (mostly involving fresh veggies; NOMNOMNOM HELLO SUMMER THANK YOU FOR BRINGING ME FRUITS AND VEGETABLES), and wandered her delightful neighborhood, and people-watched, and ate gelato, and ate chocolates, and sprawled out in the grass in the sunshine, and chatted about ALL THE THINGS, and it was PERFECT, seriously. <333333333 We also watched The Song Remains the Same, which I had never seen before, and that was EXCELLENT. And also WHAT THE FUCK. But mostly EXCELLENT. Heeee. And then that ended JUST IN TIME for us to take the SkyTrain (SKYTRAIN! I have always wanted to take the SkyTrain! It was very exciting) to the venue! MAGIC.
The venue itself is really lovely, and it's a concert hall so the sound and acoustics were SPECTACULAR, and we had an excellent view of the stage. (I was also saying to Desfinado how EXTREMELY LOW my standards are after having seen so many shows at the !@(@%&@ Showbox SoDo. Heh.) We were a few minutes late, but we got to our seats in time to hear all but the first song from Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside, who are actually from Portland.
zabira had told me they were great, and she was absolutely right. They have a super-cool, nerdy, retro vibe, surf rock with a punk attitude. Sallie Ford has a brilliant, brassy voice, and a hell of a lot of charisma, AND she plays the guitar, AND on the songs where she didn't play guitar, she was dancing adorkably and swinging around to make her skirt spin out. ♥__♥ And they have a stand-up bass player! They were really, REALLY fun, and it's awesome summer music; I'd definitely recommend checking them out!
We were expecting Alabama Shakes after that, because ALL of the promo stuff had said they were going to be there, and we were looking forward to seeing them. But after Sallie Ford left, The World's Most Dapper Stage Crew (dudes in suits and hats, a girl in a sweet 50's dress) started taking off the cloths that had covered most of the instruments onstage, and it definitely looked like Jack and his band's setup. Desfinado and I were really confused about what was happening, right up until the Peacocks started arriving onstage and we were like, “Huh! No Alabama Shakes, then!” So I guess they couldn’t make that date for some reason? Anyway, Sallie Ford was awesome, so I will just look forward to Alabama Shakes some other time. :)
Also it was hard to be disappointed about anything because THERE WAS THIS JACK WHITE THING HAPPENING ONSTAGE. So, the deal with this tour is that Jack is travelling with two full backing bands: one all-female (The Peacocks) and one all-male (Los Buzzardos). And they decide each morning over breakfast (I read somewhere that Jack is very big on communal band breakfast, which is ADORABLE) who’s going to play that night. AND there are different arrangements of the songs for each band, AND they don’t play from a set list (though obviously they have a stable of songs they’ve worked on, but Jack just calls out each song before they start, which-as an audience member-makes for some fun guessing of what they’re going to play, depending on which guitar he picks up or whether he goes to the piano or whatever). All of this is because Jack is a weirdo and likes to ~challenge himself and is also willing to do whatever is necessary to keep himself from becoming complacent and make sure that each audience is getting a show that’s fresh and unique, which I respect. Also, after having seen this show, I am now convinced that Jack is sufficiently ridiculously insanely talented that he kind of HAS to go to these crazy lengths to challenge himself, because he’s starting from a pretty high level right off the bat. Anyway, the two-band shenanigans were part of why I wanted to see THIS tour in particular, and I feel really lucky that I got to. ♥
Having seen both bands in videos and loved them both, I honestly wasn’t sure which one I was hoping for, but as soon as the ladies came out, I was really glad it was them, so I guess I had a preference after all! Hee. And they were UTTERLY. FUCKING. BADASS. Bryn Davies (how’s that for a Welsh name?) absolutely KILLED the (mostly) stand-up bass, despite being “13 months pregnant” (as Jack introduced her later, heee), just totally rocking out the whole time; Lillie Mae Risch played a sweet and sultry fiddle (and danced/rocked out enthusiastically upstage when she wasn’t playing, it was THE CUTEST); Margaret Bjorklund plays a calm, ethereal pedal steel; Brooke Waggonner plays an absolutely incendiary and occasionally borderline demented piano/ Rhodes; Ruby Amanfu brings the smooth powerhouse backup vocals (and maracas/tambourine/etc.); and Carla Azar is RIDICULOUS on the drums. Just RIDICULOUS, in addition to being charming as hell, from her fabulous fascinator down to her bare feet pounding the pedals. I’M IN LOVE WITH THEM ALL, and having all those instruments onstage, with everyone getting their moments to shine, and no one feeling superfluous, and everyone in fact feeling necessary, was a hell of a juggling act, and they pulled it off STUNNINGLY well.
Also, on a shallow note? They are all REALLY PRETTY, in very different ways, and they have fabulous chemistry with each other and with Jack, and they all seem to flirt with impunity, and pretty much the same thing seems to be the case with Los Buzzardos, so basically, if this is not Jack White’s Giant Travelling Orgy, I am going to be VERY DISAPPOINTED IN THE WORLD. Heeeee. (Srsly though. I hope there is some fun being had on those buses, whether it’s sexy fun or not. What a ridiculous, crazy mass road trip.)
Let’s take a moment for a brief picspam, shall we? We shall. (I stole all these from Jack's website, BTW.)
Bryn!
Lillie Mae and Ruby *___*
CARLA
Margaret (though Jack calls her Maggie)
Broooooke
Some dude (WHY WITH YOUR DREAMY GUITARING, JACK *____*)
Some dude with really nice cheekbones
SHOULD PROBABLY MAKE OUT
LET ME SHIP THAT FOR YOU
YOU TWO, AND WHOEVER JACK IS LOOKING AT
YEP, STILL FEELING MAKEOUT-POSITIVE
CUTEST. BADASS. EVER. <3333333333
So the sheer tonnage of musical ability (and hotness) onstage was already pretty overwhelming, and then there was this Jack White dude. And, okay. I still have some philosophical issues with him, and I still REALLY want him to go to therapy, but musically? I have COMPLETELY consumed the Kool-Aid. And then ordered seconds and thirds of the Kool-Aid and guzzled THOSE down too. Because DAMN. The thing about encountering Jack White at this point in his career is that I get the full benefit of all of his different musical influences, and so when you hear Blunderbuss, you hear the thrash of the White Stripes, the syncopation of The Racounteurs, the groove of the Dead Weather, all mixed up with 60’s doo-wop and 30’s country ballads and a hint of prog rock and a smattering of The Who and a deep vein of Zeppelin (which definitely hit me when I first listened to the album, but was more obvious than ever when we’d just spent the afternoon watching Zeppelin; the influence is crystal clear and DELIGHTFUL). It’s this amazing musical melting pot that manages to be fascinatingly diverse and yet completely coherent at the same time; it’s an album that holds together extremely well as an album, with great momentum and well-crafted tonal shifts; it’s an actual journey. (I’m not sure it’s an unproblematic journey, lyrically speaking, which is, well, problematic, but musically, it’s a carnival ride.) The set list was about half Blunderbuss, and then mostly White Stripes songs with a few Raconteurs and Dead Weather songs mixed in, and it was fantastic to be able to trace the common DNA through all of them. And of course it helped that we had this incredible band to lead us through it and provide their own spin on the tunes, which helped hold everything together that much more. It was especially cool to hear White Stripes songs arranged for a seven-piece band, because that’s pretty much the polar opposite of the White Stripes, and the fact that they came to life so brilliantly, with all the little details given depth and dimension, is a testament to both the musicians’ skill and to Jack’s skill as a songwriter.
Because seriously. DUDE IS AN EXTREMELY GOOD SONGWRITER. Hearing him live just threw everything into high relief; I knew he was a badass guitarist and a smart lyricist, but I never really registered how much his drumming background informs his songwriting, too, so you get these undeniable riffs over these undeniable grooves, and these compelling lyrics (though they were often pretty unintelligible, especially if you didn’t know them already, but that’s true of 98% of rock shows I’ve been to, no matter how good the sound is), and then oh, P.S., let me play the shit out of this piano for a minute. It’s fucking UNFAIR how talented he is. The more I listen to these songs, the more complex they get, and the more rewarded I feel. So between him and the rest of the band, the whole show was just a relentless festival of extreme competence and ability that left me swooning at every turn, and THAT is how they can get away with having no set list and playing a bunch of different arrangements of a bunch of different bands’ songs, because they’re so fucking good that they can pretty much do whatever they want to. IT WAS FUCKING IMPRESSIVE. IS WHAT I’M SAYING.
Performance-wise, Jack was also a lot more animated than I was expecting; he sort of jerks around up there a lot of the time like a puppet being piloted by a distracted kid, but he WORKS it somehow (possibly the fact that he’s often jerking around in the service of panty-shredding guitar solos helps). He’s not particularly chatty with the crowd, but he’s still absolutely connected nonetheless, and he is TOTALLY keyed into the band; he had great little moments with all of them, and most of all with Carla, the drummer, which might be out of habit from his White Stripes days, or might be because she’s fucking awesome, or some combination of the two, but either way, it was fun as hell to watch. (Also it was cool to see the drummer brought so far downstage instead of being relegated to the back like drummers usually are; given that both Carla and Daru Jones-the Los Buzzardos drummer-are phenomenally talented AND extremely engaging to watch, it seems like a great move.) And of course he’s got his trademark intensity, NO QUESTION, but he’s definitely got flashes of humor, too-his introductions of the band during the encore were cheerful and affectionate (at least what I heard-like I said, the vocal mic was a little bit hard to understand), and he came out for the encore doing this little hip-shimmy thing that was adooooooooooorable. ADORABLE. PLEASE BE DORKY MORE OFTEN, JACK, IT LOOKS SO GOOD ON YOU. <3
Speaking of looks, the whole visual side of things was (unsurprisingly, given Jack's careful attention to aesthetics) STUNNING. As you can see in the pics above, the women were all in various powder-blue dresses, and Jack started out in a slightly darker blue suit with a black shirt and a dark blue tie, though he tossed the suit jacket over to side-stage the first time he sat down at the piano, which was EXCELLENT. (Dapper Crew Guy #4 caught it before it even hit the ground, too. Competence EVERYWHERE! Heeee.) He also yanked off his tie and unbuttoned his top shirt button about one bar into “Steady As She Goes,” which he had to rush to do and only JUST barely made it in time to start playing, and it was so hot my eyes crossed (“WHY is hurried undressing so hot?” I said to Desfinado afterwards, then realized as I was saying it, OH. MAYBE BECAUSE IT’S UNDRESSING. HURRIEDLY. *facepalm* CAN I HELP YOU WITH THAT, JACK? Desfinado’s comment during the show was, “YOU CAN STOP PLAYING TO UNDRESS, JACK. SERIOUSLY. WE DON’T MIND.” Heeeee). But besides all of that, the lighting design was GORGEOUS; really simple, with a lot of blue and soft white lights, but it was incredibly well-done to enhance the music; there was a fair amount of strobe action, which really ramped up the intensity, and there were lots of lovely moments like during one of the last songs (Carolina Drama, maybe?) where Ruby was doing this gorgeous, passionate wordless wail over Jack’s guitar and the soft spotlights would come up on her and SHE LOOKED LIKE AN ANGEL and it was SO BEAUTIFUL, srsly. A++++++, lighting designer!
The crowd was also FANTASTIC, which was apparent even during Sallie Ford’s set-the theatre was almost full right off the bat, for one thing, which is NOT always the case for opening bands (especially when people have assigned seating, so there’s no compelling reason to show up early). And then everyone was SO dialed in to what Jack and the whole band was doing, and a lot of people knew a lot of the words and knew all the little fan code moments of when and how to respond, and they cheered everyone’s solos, and were just generally RIGHT IN IT the whole time. It was AWESOME. (And maybe this was the only silver lining of the fucking FUCK YOU scalpers ripping so many people off: in order to get to this show, you had to REALLY want to be there. And/or have awesome friends. ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥) Also, of course, this being BC, the two people in front of us sat down and lit up a joint as soon as Jack’s set started, took a few hits, and then generously offered the rest to us. I declined-partially because I was sick, and partially because I’ve only smoked pot a handful of times and the last time was several years ago, and I was planning to drive home after the show and so it didn’t feel like the best time to jump back into that particular pool-but it was very neighborly of them nonetheless! HEE. So, yeah. AWESOME CROWD, too.
Also, just a general note that I have never experienced quite that kind of a build in energy over the course of a set. Which is not to say that there was MORE energy or BETTER energy, but something about the build and release and build of the tension and intensity was somehow just a little bit different than anything I’ve ever experienced at a concert. It was especially impressive that they pulled it off without a predetermined set list (though I’ve looked at set lists for some of the other shows and they’re not dramatically different, but still), but I think it was helped a LOT by the fact that the songs themselves tend to have really brilliant shifts in energy. There’s a great line in It Might Get Loud where Jimmy Page is talking about the guitar not just being about noise, but being about the softer moments, too, “light and shadow, the whisper before the thunder” (JIMMY PAGE I LOVE YOU). And Jack’s music ABSOLUTELY embodies that; the best way I can think of to describe the show as a whole was that it felt like being under constant centrifugal force, and sometimes you were close to the center and sometimes you were spinning right out on the edge, just on the verge of losing control, but always tethered to that same unshakeable central point. It was an incredible, viscerally powerful feeling, and it was definitely one of my overwhelming, lasting impressions of the show. Like I said: IMPRESSIVE AS HELL.
I don’t recall a ton of detail about individual songs (partially because this was not a case where I knew every word to every song, though I was at least familiar with most of them), but a few things… set list first:
Setlist:
Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground
Missing Pieces
Hotel Yorba
Love Interruption
Sixteen Saltines
Two Against One
I'm Finding It Harder To Be a Gentleman
Top Yourself
We're Going To Be Friends
I'm Slowly Turning Into You
I Guess I Should Go To Sleep
Hypocritical Kiss
Freedom At 21
Weep Themselves To Sleep
You're Pretty Good Looking (For a Girl)
Blue Blood Blues
Hip (Eponymous) Poor Boy
Ball and Biscuit
Encore:
Steady As She Goes
On and On and On
Take Me With You When You Go
Carolina Drama
Seven Nation Army
- Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground: NGGGGGGGGGGH. SUCH A FANTASTIC WAY TO START A SHOW. And a great example of what I mean about the dynamic shifts in Jack’s songs; I love the way this starts out slow and simple, and then hits you like a ton of bricks for a few bars, and then backs off again. MMMMMMMMMMMM. Also I love that this is actually a really sweet love song-I mean, “every breath that is in your lungs is a tiny little gift to me” is a pretty damn awesome expression of love, IMO-for all that it is not at ALL a love-song-y title. <333
- Jack introduced Hotel Yorba by saying “We’re gonna play a country song now, if you don’t mind… there must be some people out there from Calgary, right?” HEEEEE.
- Love Interruption right into Sixteen Saltines was AAAAAAAAAAWESOME, like the iron fist in the velvet glove. *__* Also, the more I actually hear the lyrics to Sixteen Saltines, the kinkier it gets, so they fit together pretty well, actually! Heh. I was also really psyched to see Jack play this with the Peacocks, as I’d only seen him do it with Los Buzzardos before, so it was cool to see the slightly different but still thoroughly rockin’ energy. YUM.
- Top Yourself: FUCK this song is so dirty, I CAN’T EVEN DEAL WITH IT. And Ruby’s vocals add SO MUCH to it. Also? They had to perform some sort of surgery during this song that resulted in them TAKING CARLA’S BASS DRUM AWAY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SONG, like, oh well, THAT’s not a thing a drummer needs, and yet she covered PERFECTLY and just hammered that much harder on her other drums. IT WAS AWESOME. (And then they played a drum-lite song next while mysterious things went on backstage, which I guess is an advantage of not having a set list. Hee.)
- I read a thing recently where someone called We’re Going To Be Friends “twee” and I suppose it kind of is, but… I don’t know, it’s lovely to have this little bit of wistful earnestness in the midst of a set that’s generally fairly aggressive in one way or another. They played this at the AMEX Unstaged show and the audience was singing along and Jack goes, “Oh, you know this one?” and let them sing a couple of lines on their own, and IDK, it’s just peaceful and sweet and I like it a lot.
- I’m Slowly Turning Into You: OH MAN. Again, Ruby’s vocals bring a fantastic dimension to this song, and there’s the super-hard thrash right before the chorus and then the chorus itself is all about the thready tension of Jack’s voice, right on the edge of control, HNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGH SO HOT. And I LOVE LOVE LOVE the way the guitar solo turns into a fiddle-and-guitar solo; it’s MAGICAL.
- The best word I can think of to describe I Guess I’ll Just Go To Sleep is ROLLICKING. It has such a delightful, cheerful energy to it, and the line “upstairs, upstaged, and upset” just cracks me up every time for some reason. There’s a fair amount of bitterness on Blunderbuss, so the kind of rueful “I’m just gonna shut up and go over here now” attitude of this song is a nice change of flavor, like the part of a fight where you’ve reached the point that you’re being so unreasonable it’s actually hilarious. ♥ PLUS Jack playing the piano. YES PLEASE.
- So Freedom at 21 gives me headaches, because musically, it’s one of my favorite songs on the album, and lyrically, it’s the most problematic one for me. I mean, there are lots of interpretations of this song, and given that Jack works with and promotes women so often, I’m inclined to give him some benefit of the doubt and say it’s just kind of clueless, but any song that’s bemoaning the freedom of a woman in the 21st century makes me give it some SERIOUS side-eye. And that SUCKS, because the groove of this song is fucking unreal (I definitely hear the Dead Weather vibe here) and, as awesome as it is on the album, it’s about 20 times better live, where the rhythm gets a chance to breathe a little bit, and UGH. LOVE AND ALSO AM KIND OF ANGRY AT. DON’T DO THIS TO ME, JACK. (Also, in a lot of ways Blunderbuss reads like an angry breakup album, and Jack did just get divorced a year or so ago, but his ex-wife also apparently provided some of the backing vocals on the album, so… IDEK, man.)
- Weep Themselves To Sleep is a BARN-BURNER, and maybe the best example from Blunderbuss of how all these different elements can come together-the beat is relentless, the piano is insane (this is where Brooke gets borderline demented, holy shit *__*), and Jack’s guitar solo is (in addition to being like two Tesla coils deciding if they want to fuck) the perfect sheer, sharp edge right at the climax. AS;LDFKJ AS;GLKJA S;LDFJK ;SLKJADG ;ALKSJ G;ALK
- First of all, Hip (Eponymous) Poor Boy is a fantastic title, Y/MFY? I’m sorry, but anyone who uses the word “eponymous” gets some level of respect from me. This is another song that isn’t exactly positive but it’s not bitter either; if it’s a fuck-you, it’s a cheerful one, so I can’t really be mad at it. This is pretty clearly directed at Meg (“I’ll be using your name,” “let the stripes unfurl,” etc.), and I know Jack has said he’d be in the White Stripes forever if he could so I imagine the breakup still bums him out, but there aren’t any sharp edges here, just mainly gentle teasing, so I’m cool with it. (Maybe that’s why this album feels like a breakup album; maybe it’s an exorcism of sorts, as he strikes out on his own [sort of] for the first time. Though psychoanalyzing Jack White is certainly way, WAY beyond my pay grade, JFC. Heh.)
- BALL. AND. BISCUIT. HOLY FUCK. I generally like to stay unspoiled for set lists, so I had no idea they’d been playing this, and for some reason it seemed like a weird choice for a concert (long and sort of mellow, relatively speaking), so I was NOT expecting it, and I LOST MY SHIT when they launched into it. This song is pure filthy blues sex and I cannot deal with it. I CANNOT. This is totally TMI, but the guitar solos in this song (of which there are like FOUR), in this show, are legitimately the closest I have ever come to an actual orgasm without anyone touching me. I’m not kidding. I don’t know what it is about the electric guitar that has a profound visceral effect on me, but it does, and there are lots of manifestations of that, obviously, but Jack likes to use these pedals that give everything this rusty, raw edge, but it’s somehow piercing and clean at the same time, and he has such an amazing sense of melody and tension and rhythm and the whole effect just goes directly to my soul AND my lizard brain AND my ladyparts at the same time, and I cannot. I CANNOT. It was like the sound built up inside my chest and I had to keep my mouth clamped shut to keep from squealing. A;SLDKFJ A;SLDGJK A;SLDGKJA S;LGKJ S;DGLKAJS G;LAKSGJ A;SLGKJ A;SLGKJ A;SLGJK AAAAAAAAAAGH. Like, Ray Toro has this effect on me, too, where the glee hits me so hard and so fast that I kind of have to look away because IT’S TOO AWESOME and I need to reduce one of my senses in order to keep from EXPLODING. But Ray is not singing dirty sexy things while he’s playing, like Jack is, so it’s just. I just. That song was ALL I NEEDED from this show. And Jack got his guitar cord tangled around one of Carla’s cymbals at the end and actually pulled it over (which fortunately didn’t matter because it was the end of the set anyway), and it was kind of like, yep, that seems about right, let’s just DESTROY EVERYTHING, I’m done, I can’t, there is no more. IT WAS INTENSE. IS THE THING.
- But then, after a looooooooooong wait, there was the encore! A DELIGHTFULLY LONG ENCORE. I was expecting two or three songs at the most and then they just KEPT PLAYING and it was THE BEST THING EVER. <33333333 They started off with Steady As She Goes and Jack (after the whole tie-yanking-off thing very early on, THANK YOU for waiting until you got onstage to do that, Jack!) did this whole call and response thing with the crowd toward the end; of course people were already singing along, but during the sort of vamping part, he was like, “You all wanna sing along with us? I know it’s been a while, but do you wanna sing with us?” It was BIZARRELY CHARMING (which should be Jack’s epitaph, as far as I’m concerned). So he instructed us, “So when I say ‘steady as she goes,’ you say ‘are you steady now?’, are you ready?” and of course we were and so we all sang together and it was AWESOME. SUPER-fun.
- And then I think Jack actually sat down at the piano for On and On and On, and introduced the band from there, and it was adorable; I wish I’d been able to hear him better, but what I heard was really cute and sweet, and the band’s reactions were likewise adorable. I really appreciated how even though it’s his name on the marquee, and he’s calling the shots, the show was CLEARLY about the whole band, the way he was constantly interacting with them, and their chemistry as a group, and the way all of them got moments to shine, made it so obvious that this is not “just” a backing band, they’re a TEAM, and-shockingly-I was really, REALLY into that. Jack clearly has an ego, but it’s not THAT kind of ego; he obviously delights in other talented people and enjoys working with them and playing off of them and being challenged by them, and he’s happy to let them have the attention, and I like that a LOT. Also, On and On and On is SUUUUUCH a Zeppelin song, it’s RIDICULOUS.
- I’m surprised at how well Carolina Drama works in a concert setting, especially in an encore; I generally don’t really get murder ballads as a concept, but it’s just really compelling somehow, and (like I mentioned) Ruby’s vocals added this amazing intensity, and it was awesome.
- SPEAKING OF INTENSITY. SEVEN NATION ARMY. I know it’s cliché to love this song because everyone likes this song, but I don’t give a shit, it’s a great fucking song and it was the absolute PERFECT choice to end the journey. This was, in fact, the perfect culmination of the builds and releases of tension that had been gradually accumulating all night, because this song follows that EXACT same pattern, only ramped up to 11; it STARTS at 11, and then ramps up to 25, and then takes you back to 13, and up to 27, and on and on like that, and every time you hit a new height you think “okay, it can’t possibly get more awesome than this” and then it DOES. I know it sounds hyperbolic, but seriously, I have never experienced anything QUITE like that. And the fact that everyone knows the song and knows that those heights are coming, the ANTICIPATION was electric, the build each time before Jack hits that pedal and swings into the heavy part of the chorus, the “oh shit, HERE IT COMES,” like climbing to the top of a hill on a rollercoaster, EEEEEEE IT WAS AMAZING. And then just before the last verse, the guitar and bass dropped out and Jack just let us all sing the bass riff ourselves, “ohhhhh oh OH oh oh ohhhhh ohhhhhh,” while he sang over us and Carla kept time and it was MAGICAL. PERFECT. BRILLIANT. AMAAAAAAZING end to the show, I left on Cloud Nine Hundred.
And then! I stood in line for a while to get a t-shirt (during which time a crowd came up from the pit still singing “ohhhhh oh OH oh oh ohhhhh ohhhhhh,” it was VERY CUTE), and then we skipped and chattered and flailed our way down to Granville Street to get crepes right next to the Commodore, HELLO COMMODORE, THANK YOU FOR BRINGING ME MY BELOVED HEADSTONES, and-thus fortified-flailed our way back to the Skytrain (SKYTRAIN!), and had more debriefing, and also a few sexual fantasies about Jack, AND THEN we had to watch some of It Might Get Loud to close the circle between Zeppelin and Jack. And then I drove home and did not die, and crawled into bed at 4 a.m. and did NOT have to work the next day for once, and it was AWESOME.
DREAM. WEEKEND. OF AWESOME.
People who made this possible: thank you SO SO SO SO SO SO SO MUCH, it was an amaaaaaazing experience and I feel incredibly lucky to have had it. And special thanks to Desfinado for her fabulous hospitality and fabulous company! ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
ALSO. Though this entry is already insanely long enough, I did want to link a few videos as well. None of these are from our show-they asked people not to take pictures or record video, and apparently people either actually listened or the venue staff was unusually vigilant-which bums me out, but there’s some awesome stuff nonetheless. My “if you only watch one video” pick is this, from the AMEX Unstaged show recently… the first minute and a half is Jack tackling and then wrestling with Gary Oldman (seriously), and then it goes into a looooovely acoustic version of “Guess I’ll Just Go To Sleep” with the Peacocks. It goes on from there-more chatting with Gary and one more song-but those first two bits give you a pretty good idea of the situation.
SUCH ADORABLE FACES ALL AROUND. <3333333333
And then here is an AWESOME rendition of “Ball and Biscuit,” with Los Buzzardos, SO FUCKING HOT:
Top Yourself, with the Peacocks (HNNNNGH):
Freedom At 21, with the Peacocks:
I’m Slowly Turning Into You, with the Peacocks:
The entire AMEX Unstaged show is WELL worth watching, IMO; you can still get the full two hours (very slightly fuzzy) here. The first half of the show is with the Peacocks, the second half with Los Buzzardos, and it is overall EXCELLENT.
Aaaaaaaaaaaand that is QUITE ENOUGH. Except to say THANK YOU GUYS AGAIN. <33333333333333333333333
This post is also at Dreamwidth! http://brynnmck.dreamwidth.org/288256.html Comments at Dreamwidth:
The melody’s mostly monotonous, but Jack pumps it with gallons of swagger. The drums would make Meg White proud, the way they sucker-punch the groove. Jack’s solo slaughters, especially on headphones, since actually it’s two solos played simultaneously in separate channels, which sound like a couple of Tesla coils deciding whether they should fuck.
BEST. DESCRIPTION. EVER. That is some badass music reviewing.
Anyway. ON TO THE WEEKEND’S ADVENTURES.
Before the show even happened, I'd already had an AMAZING weekend with desfinado (despite the sore throat/cold that I woke up with on Friday; SO UNCOOL, but I had a great time anyway! HA. Weekend: 1, Cold: 0). I got to tour her beautiful, fascinating place of work, and we went out for delicious food, and made our own delicious food (mostly involving fresh veggies; NOMNOMNOM HELLO SUMMER THANK YOU FOR BRINGING ME FRUITS AND VEGETABLES), and wandered her delightful neighborhood, and people-watched, and ate gelato, and ate chocolates, and sprawled out in the grass in the sunshine, and chatted about ALL THE THINGS, and it was PERFECT, seriously. <333333333 We also watched The Song Remains the Same, which I had never seen before, and that was EXCELLENT. And also WHAT THE FUCK. But mostly EXCELLENT. Heeee. And then that ended JUST IN TIME for us to take the SkyTrain (SKYTRAIN! I have always wanted to take the SkyTrain! It was very exciting) to the venue! MAGIC.
The venue itself is really lovely, and it's a concert hall so the sound and acoustics were SPECTACULAR, and we had an excellent view of the stage. (I was also saying to Desfinado how EXTREMELY LOW my standards are after having seen so many shows at the !@(@%&@ Showbox SoDo. Heh.) We were a few minutes late, but we got to our seats in time to hear all but the first song from Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside, who are actually from Portland.
zabira had told me they were great, and she was absolutely right. They have a super-cool, nerdy, retro vibe, surf rock with a punk attitude. Sallie Ford has a brilliant, brassy voice, and a hell of a lot of charisma, AND she plays the guitar, AND on the songs where she didn't play guitar, she was dancing adorkably and swinging around to make her skirt spin out. ♥__♥ And they have a stand-up bass player! They were really, REALLY fun, and it's awesome summer music; I'd definitely recommend checking them out!
We were expecting Alabama Shakes after that, because ALL of the promo stuff had said they were going to be there, and we were looking forward to seeing them. But after Sallie Ford left, The World's Most Dapper Stage Crew (dudes in suits and hats, a girl in a sweet 50's dress) started taking off the cloths that had covered most of the instruments onstage, and it definitely looked like Jack and his band's setup. Desfinado and I were really confused about what was happening, right up until the Peacocks started arriving onstage and we were like, “Huh! No Alabama Shakes, then!” So I guess they couldn’t make that date for some reason? Anyway, Sallie Ford was awesome, so I will just look forward to Alabama Shakes some other time. :)
Also it was hard to be disappointed about anything because THERE WAS THIS JACK WHITE THING HAPPENING ONSTAGE. So, the deal with this tour is that Jack is travelling with two full backing bands: one all-female (The Peacocks) and one all-male (Los Buzzardos). And they decide each morning over breakfast (I read somewhere that Jack is very big on communal band breakfast, which is ADORABLE) who’s going to play that night. AND there are different arrangements of the songs for each band, AND they don’t play from a set list (though obviously they have a stable of songs they’ve worked on, but Jack just calls out each song before they start, which-as an audience member-makes for some fun guessing of what they’re going to play, depending on which guitar he picks up or whether he goes to the piano or whatever). All of this is because Jack is a weirdo and likes to ~challenge himself and is also willing to do whatever is necessary to keep himself from becoming complacent and make sure that each audience is getting a show that’s fresh and unique, which I respect. Also, after having seen this show, I am now convinced that Jack is sufficiently ridiculously insanely talented that he kind of HAS to go to these crazy lengths to challenge himself, because he’s starting from a pretty high level right off the bat. Anyway, the two-band shenanigans were part of why I wanted to see THIS tour in particular, and I feel really lucky that I got to. ♥
Having seen both bands in videos and loved them both, I honestly wasn’t sure which one I was hoping for, but as soon as the ladies came out, I was really glad it was them, so I guess I had a preference after all! Hee. And they were UTTERLY. FUCKING. BADASS. Bryn Davies (how’s that for a Welsh name?) absolutely KILLED the (mostly) stand-up bass, despite being “13 months pregnant” (as Jack introduced her later, heee), just totally rocking out the whole time; Lillie Mae Risch played a sweet and sultry fiddle (and danced/rocked out enthusiastically upstage when she wasn’t playing, it was THE CUTEST); Margaret Bjorklund plays a calm, ethereal pedal steel; Brooke Waggonner plays an absolutely incendiary and occasionally borderline demented piano/ Rhodes; Ruby Amanfu brings the smooth powerhouse backup vocals (and maracas/tambourine/etc.); and Carla Azar is RIDICULOUS on the drums. Just RIDICULOUS, in addition to being charming as hell, from her fabulous fascinator down to her bare feet pounding the pedals. I’M IN LOVE WITH THEM ALL, and having all those instruments onstage, with everyone getting their moments to shine, and no one feeling superfluous, and everyone in fact feeling necessary, was a hell of a juggling act, and they pulled it off STUNNINGLY well.
Also, on a shallow note? They are all REALLY PRETTY, in very different ways, and they have fabulous chemistry with each other and with Jack, and they all seem to flirt with impunity, and pretty much the same thing seems to be the case with Los Buzzardos, so basically, if this is not Jack White’s Giant Travelling Orgy, I am going to be VERY DISAPPOINTED IN THE WORLD. Heeeee. (Srsly though. I hope there is some fun being had on those buses, whether it’s sexy fun or not. What a ridiculous, crazy mass road trip.)
Let’s take a moment for a brief picspam, shall we? We shall. (I stole all these from Jack's website, BTW.)
Bryn!
Lillie Mae and Ruby *___*
CARLA
Margaret (though Jack calls her Maggie)
Broooooke
Some dude (WHY WITH YOUR DREAMY GUITARING, JACK *____*)
Some dude with really nice cheekbones
SHOULD PROBABLY MAKE OUT
LET ME SHIP THAT FOR YOU
YOU TWO, AND WHOEVER JACK IS LOOKING AT
YEP, STILL FEELING MAKEOUT-POSITIVE
CUTEST. BADASS. EVER. <3333333333
So the sheer tonnage of musical ability (and hotness) onstage was already pretty overwhelming, and then there was this Jack White dude. And, okay. I still have some philosophical issues with him, and I still REALLY want him to go to therapy, but musically? I have COMPLETELY consumed the Kool-Aid. And then ordered seconds and thirds of the Kool-Aid and guzzled THOSE down too. Because DAMN. The thing about encountering Jack White at this point in his career is that I get the full benefit of all of his different musical influences, and so when you hear Blunderbuss, you hear the thrash of the White Stripes, the syncopation of The Racounteurs, the groove of the Dead Weather, all mixed up with 60’s doo-wop and 30’s country ballads and a hint of prog rock and a smattering of The Who and a deep vein of Zeppelin (which definitely hit me when I first listened to the album, but was more obvious than ever when we’d just spent the afternoon watching Zeppelin; the influence is crystal clear and DELIGHTFUL). It’s this amazing musical melting pot that manages to be fascinatingly diverse and yet completely coherent at the same time; it’s an album that holds together extremely well as an album, with great momentum and well-crafted tonal shifts; it’s an actual journey. (I’m not sure it’s an unproblematic journey, lyrically speaking, which is, well, problematic, but musically, it’s a carnival ride.) The set list was about half Blunderbuss, and then mostly White Stripes songs with a few Raconteurs and Dead Weather songs mixed in, and it was fantastic to be able to trace the common DNA through all of them. And of course it helped that we had this incredible band to lead us through it and provide their own spin on the tunes, which helped hold everything together that much more. It was especially cool to hear White Stripes songs arranged for a seven-piece band, because that’s pretty much the polar opposite of the White Stripes, and the fact that they came to life so brilliantly, with all the little details given depth and dimension, is a testament to both the musicians’ skill and to Jack’s skill as a songwriter.
Because seriously. DUDE IS AN EXTREMELY GOOD SONGWRITER. Hearing him live just threw everything into high relief; I knew he was a badass guitarist and a smart lyricist, but I never really registered how much his drumming background informs his songwriting, too, so you get these undeniable riffs over these undeniable grooves, and these compelling lyrics (though they were often pretty unintelligible, especially if you didn’t know them already, but that’s true of 98% of rock shows I’ve been to, no matter how good the sound is), and then oh, P.S., let me play the shit out of this piano for a minute. It’s fucking UNFAIR how talented he is. The more I listen to these songs, the more complex they get, and the more rewarded I feel. So between him and the rest of the band, the whole show was just a relentless festival of extreme competence and ability that left me swooning at every turn, and THAT is how they can get away with having no set list and playing a bunch of different arrangements of a bunch of different bands’ songs, because they’re so fucking good that they can pretty much do whatever they want to. IT WAS FUCKING IMPRESSIVE. IS WHAT I’M SAYING.
Performance-wise, Jack was also a lot more animated than I was expecting; he sort of jerks around up there a lot of the time like a puppet being piloted by a distracted kid, but he WORKS it somehow (possibly the fact that he’s often jerking around in the service of panty-shredding guitar solos helps). He’s not particularly chatty with the crowd, but he’s still absolutely connected nonetheless, and he is TOTALLY keyed into the band; he had great little moments with all of them, and most of all with Carla, the drummer, which might be out of habit from his White Stripes days, or might be because she’s fucking awesome, or some combination of the two, but either way, it was fun as hell to watch. (Also it was cool to see the drummer brought so far downstage instead of being relegated to the back like drummers usually are; given that both Carla and Daru Jones-the Los Buzzardos drummer-are phenomenally talented AND extremely engaging to watch, it seems like a great move.) And of course he’s got his trademark intensity, NO QUESTION, but he’s definitely got flashes of humor, too-his introductions of the band during the encore were cheerful and affectionate (at least what I heard-like I said, the vocal mic was a little bit hard to understand), and he came out for the encore doing this little hip-shimmy thing that was adooooooooooorable. ADORABLE. PLEASE BE DORKY MORE OFTEN, JACK, IT LOOKS SO GOOD ON YOU. <3
Speaking of looks, the whole visual side of things was (unsurprisingly, given Jack's careful attention to aesthetics) STUNNING. As you can see in the pics above, the women were all in various powder-blue dresses, and Jack started out in a slightly darker blue suit with a black shirt and a dark blue tie, though he tossed the suit jacket over to side-stage the first time he sat down at the piano, which was EXCELLENT. (Dapper Crew Guy #4 caught it before it even hit the ground, too. Competence EVERYWHERE! Heeee.) He also yanked off his tie and unbuttoned his top shirt button about one bar into “Steady As She Goes,” which he had to rush to do and only JUST barely made it in time to start playing, and it was so hot my eyes crossed (“WHY is hurried undressing so hot?” I said to Desfinado afterwards, then realized as I was saying it, OH. MAYBE BECAUSE IT’S UNDRESSING. HURRIEDLY. *facepalm* CAN I HELP YOU WITH THAT, JACK? Desfinado’s comment during the show was, “YOU CAN STOP PLAYING TO UNDRESS, JACK. SERIOUSLY. WE DON’T MIND.” Heeeee). But besides all of that, the lighting design was GORGEOUS; really simple, with a lot of blue and soft white lights, but it was incredibly well-done to enhance the music; there was a fair amount of strobe action, which really ramped up the intensity, and there were lots of lovely moments like during one of the last songs (Carolina Drama, maybe?) where Ruby was doing this gorgeous, passionate wordless wail over Jack’s guitar and the soft spotlights would come up on her and SHE LOOKED LIKE AN ANGEL and it was SO BEAUTIFUL, srsly. A++++++, lighting designer!
The crowd was also FANTASTIC, which was apparent even during Sallie Ford’s set-the theatre was almost full right off the bat, for one thing, which is NOT always the case for opening bands (especially when people have assigned seating, so there’s no compelling reason to show up early). And then everyone was SO dialed in to what Jack and the whole band was doing, and a lot of people knew a lot of the words and knew all the little fan code moments of when and how to respond, and they cheered everyone’s solos, and were just generally RIGHT IN IT the whole time. It was AWESOME. (And maybe this was the only silver lining of the fucking FUCK YOU scalpers ripping so many people off: in order to get to this show, you had to REALLY want to be there. And/or have awesome friends. ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥) Also, of course, this being BC, the two people in front of us sat down and lit up a joint as soon as Jack’s set started, took a few hits, and then generously offered the rest to us. I declined-partially because I was sick, and partially because I’ve only smoked pot a handful of times and the last time was several years ago, and I was planning to drive home after the show and so it didn’t feel like the best time to jump back into that particular pool-but it was very neighborly of them nonetheless! HEE. So, yeah. AWESOME CROWD, too.
Also, just a general note that I have never experienced quite that kind of a build in energy over the course of a set. Which is not to say that there was MORE energy or BETTER energy, but something about the build and release and build of the tension and intensity was somehow just a little bit different than anything I’ve ever experienced at a concert. It was especially impressive that they pulled it off without a predetermined set list (though I’ve looked at set lists for some of the other shows and they’re not dramatically different, but still), but I think it was helped a LOT by the fact that the songs themselves tend to have really brilliant shifts in energy. There’s a great line in It Might Get Loud where Jimmy Page is talking about the guitar not just being about noise, but being about the softer moments, too, “light and shadow, the whisper before the thunder” (JIMMY PAGE I LOVE YOU). And Jack’s music ABSOLUTELY embodies that; the best way I can think of to describe the show as a whole was that it felt like being under constant centrifugal force, and sometimes you were close to the center and sometimes you were spinning right out on the edge, just on the verge of losing control, but always tethered to that same unshakeable central point. It was an incredible, viscerally powerful feeling, and it was definitely one of my overwhelming, lasting impressions of the show. Like I said: IMPRESSIVE AS HELL.
I don’t recall a ton of detail about individual songs (partially because this was not a case where I knew every word to every song, though I was at least familiar with most of them), but a few things… set list first:
Setlist:
Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground
Missing Pieces
Hotel Yorba
Love Interruption
Sixteen Saltines
Two Against One
I'm Finding It Harder To Be a Gentleman
Top Yourself
We're Going To Be Friends
I'm Slowly Turning Into You
I Guess I Should Go To Sleep
Hypocritical Kiss
Freedom At 21
Weep Themselves To Sleep
You're Pretty Good Looking (For a Girl)
Blue Blood Blues
Hip (Eponymous) Poor Boy
Ball and Biscuit
Encore:
Steady As She Goes
On and On and On
Take Me With You When You Go
Carolina Drama
Seven Nation Army
- Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground: NGGGGGGGGGGH. SUCH A FANTASTIC WAY TO START A SHOW. And a great example of what I mean about the dynamic shifts in Jack’s songs; I love the way this starts out slow and simple, and then hits you like a ton of bricks for a few bars, and then backs off again. MMMMMMMMMMMM. Also I love that this is actually a really sweet love song-I mean, “every breath that is in your lungs is a tiny little gift to me” is a pretty damn awesome expression of love, IMO-for all that it is not at ALL a love-song-y title. <333
- Jack introduced Hotel Yorba by saying “We’re gonna play a country song now, if you don’t mind… there must be some people out there from Calgary, right?” HEEEEE.
- Love Interruption right into Sixteen Saltines was AAAAAAAAAAWESOME, like the iron fist in the velvet glove. *__* Also, the more I actually hear the lyrics to Sixteen Saltines, the kinkier it gets, so they fit together pretty well, actually! Heh. I was also really psyched to see Jack play this with the Peacocks, as I’d only seen him do it with Los Buzzardos before, so it was cool to see the slightly different but still thoroughly rockin’ energy. YUM.
- Top Yourself: FUCK this song is so dirty, I CAN’T EVEN DEAL WITH IT. And Ruby’s vocals add SO MUCH to it. Also? They had to perform some sort of surgery during this song that resulted in them TAKING CARLA’S BASS DRUM AWAY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SONG, like, oh well, THAT’s not a thing a drummer needs, and yet she covered PERFECTLY and just hammered that much harder on her other drums. IT WAS AWESOME. (And then they played a drum-lite song next while mysterious things went on backstage, which I guess is an advantage of not having a set list. Hee.)
- I read a thing recently where someone called We’re Going To Be Friends “twee” and I suppose it kind of is, but… I don’t know, it’s lovely to have this little bit of wistful earnestness in the midst of a set that’s generally fairly aggressive in one way or another. They played this at the AMEX Unstaged show and the audience was singing along and Jack goes, “Oh, you know this one?” and let them sing a couple of lines on their own, and IDK, it’s just peaceful and sweet and I like it a lot.
- I’m Slowly Turning Into You: OH MAN. Again, Ruby’s vocals bring a fantastic dimension to this song, and there’s the super-hard thrash right before the chorus and then the chorus itself is all about the thready tension of Jack’s voice, right on the edge of control, HNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGH SO HOT. And I LOVE LOVE LOVE the way the guitar solo turns into a fiddle-and-guitar solo; it’s MAGICAL.
- The best word I can think of to describe I Guess I’ll Just Go To Sleep is ROLLICKING. It has such a delightful, cheerful energy to it, and the line “upstairs, upstaged, and upset” just cracks me up every time for some reason. There’s a fair amount of bitterness on Blunderbuss, so the kind of rueful “I’m just gonna shut up and go over here now” attitude of this song is a nice change of flavor, like the part of a fight where you’ve reached the point that you’re being so unreasonable it’s actually hilarious. ♥ PLUS Jack playing the piano. YES PLEASE.
- So Freedom at 21 gives me headaches, because musically, it’s one of my favorite songs on the album, and lyrically, it’s the most problematic one for me. I mean, there are lots of interpretations of this song, and given that Jack works with and promotes women so often, I’m inclined to give him some benefit of the doubt and say it’s just kind of clueless, but any song that’s bemoaning the freedom of a woman in the 21st century makes me give it some SERIOUS side-eye. And that SUCKS, because the groove of this song is fucking unreal (I definitely hear the Dead Weather vibe here) and, as awesome as it is on the album, it’s about 20 times better live, where the rhythm gets a chance to breathe a little bit, and UGH. LOVE AND ALSO AM KIND OF ANGRY AT. DON’T DO THIS TO ME, JACK. (Also, in a lot of ways Blunderbuss reads like an angry breakup album, and Jack did just get divorced a year or so ago, but his ex-wife also apparently provided some of the backing vocals on the album, so… IDEK, man.)
- Weep Themselves To Sleep is a BARN-BURNER, and maybe the best example from Blunderbuss of how all these different elements can come together-the beat is relentless, the piano is insane (this is where Brooke gets borderline demented, holy shit *__*), and Jack’s guitar solo is (in addition to being like two Tesla coils deciding if they want to fuck) the perfect sheer, sharp edge right at the climax. AS;LDFKJ AS;GLKJA S;LDFJK ;SLKJADG ;ALKSJ G;ALK
- First of all, Hip (Eponymous) Poor Boy is a fantastic title, Y/MFY? I’m sorry, but anyone who uses the word “eponymous” gets some level of respect from me. This is another song that isn’t exactly positive but it’s not bitter either; if it’s a fuck-you, it’s a cheerful one, so I can’t really be mad at it. This is pretty clearly directed at Meg (“I’ll be using your name,” “let the stripes unfurl,” etc.), and I know Jack has said he’d be in the White Stripes forever if he could so I imagine the breakup still bums him out, but there aren’t any sharp edges here, just mainly gentle teasing, so I’m cool with it. (Maybe that’s why this album feels like a breakup album; maybe it’s an exorcism of sorts, as he strikes out on his own [sort of] for the first time. Though psychoanalyzing Jack White is certainly way, WAY beyond my pay grade, JFC. Heh.)
- BALL. AND. BISCUIT. HOLY FUCK. I generally like to stay unspoiled for set lists, so I had no idea they’d been playing this, and for some reason it seemed like a weird choice for a concert (long and sort of mellow, relatively speaking), so I was NOT expecting it, and I LOST MY SHIT when they launched into it. This song is pure filthy blues sex and I cannot deal with it. I CANNOT. This is totally TMI, but the guitar solos in this song (of which there are like FOUR), in this show, are legitimately the closest I have ever come to an actual orgasm without anyone touching me. I’m not kidding. I don’t know what it is about the electric guitar that has a profound visceral effect on me, but it does, and there are lots of manifestations of that, obviously, but Jack likes to use these pedals that give everything this rusty, raw edge, but it’s somehow piercing and clean at the same time, and he has such an amazing sense of melody and tension and rhythm and the whole effect just goes directly to my soul AND my lizard brain AND my ladyparts at the same time, and I cannot. I CANNOT. It was like the sound built up inside my chest and I had to keep my mouth clamped shut to keep from squealing. A;SLDKFJ A;SLDGJK A;SLDGKJA S;LGKJ S;DGLKAJS G;LAKSGJ A;SLGKJ A;SLGKJ A;SLGJK AAAAAAAAAAGH. Like, Ray Toro has this effect on me, too, where the glee hits me so hard and so fast that I kind of have to look away because IT’S TOO AWESOME and I need to reduce one of my senses in order to keep from EXPLODING. But Ray is not singing dirty sexy things while he’s playing, like Jack is, so it’s just. I just. That song was ALL I NEEDED from this show. And Jack got his guitar cord tangled around one of Carla’s cymbals at the end and actually pulled it over (which fortunately didn’t matter because it was the end of the set anyway), and it was kind of like, yep, that seems about right, let’s just DESTROY EVERYTHING, I’m done, I can’t, there is no more. IT WAS INTENSE. IS THE THING.
- But then, after a looooooooooong wait, there was the encore! A DELIGHTFULLY LONG ENCORE. I was expecting two or three songs at the most and then they just KEPT PLAYING and it was THE BEST THING EVER. <33333333 They started off with Steady As She Goes and Jack (after the whole tie-yanking-off thing very early on, THANK YOU for waiting until you got onstage to do that, Jack!) did this whole call and response thing with the crowd toward the end; of course people were already singing along, but during the sort of vamping part, he was like, “You all wanna sing along with us? I know it’s been a while, but do you wanna sing with us?” It was BIZARRELY CHARMING (which should be Jack’s epitaph, as far as I’m concerned). So he instructed us, “So when I say ‘steady as she goes,’ you say ‘are you steady now?’, are you ready?” and of course we were and so we all sang together and it was AWESOME. SUPER-fun.
- And then I think Jack actually sat down at the piano for On and On and On, and introduced the band from there, and it was adorable; I wish I’d been able to hear him better, but what I heard was really cute and sweet, and the band’s reactions were likewise adorable. I really appreciated how even though it’s his name on the marquee, and he’s calling the shots, the show was CLEARLY about the whole band, the way he was constantly interacting with them, and their chemistry as a group, and the way all of them got moments to shine, made it so obvious that this is not “just” a backing band, they’re a TEAM, and-shockingly-I was really, REALLY into that. Jack clearly has an ego, but it’s not THAT kind of ego; he obviously delights in other talented people and enjoys working with them and playing off of them and being challenged by them, and he’s happy to let them have the attention, and I like that a LOT. Also, On and On and On is SUUUUUCH a Zeppelin song, it’s RIDICULOUS.
- I’m surprised at how well Carolina Drama works in a concert setting, especially in an encore; I generally don’t really get murder ballads as a concept, but it’s just really compelling somehow, and (like I mentioned) Ruby’s vocals added this amazing intensity, and it was awesome.
- SPEAKING OF INTENSITY. SEVEN NATION ARMY. I know it’s cliché to love this song because everyone likes this song, but I don’t give a shit, it’s a great fucking song and it was the absolute PERFECT choice to end the journey. This was, in fact, the perfect culmination of the builds and releases of tension that had been gradually accumulating all night, because this song follows that EXACT same pattern, only ramped up to 11; it STARTS at 11, and then ramps up to 25, and then takes you back to 13, and up to 27, and on and on like that, and every time you hit a new height you think “okay, it can’t possibly get more awesome than this” and then it DOES. I know it sounds hyperbolic, but seriously, I have never experienced anything QUITE like that. And the fact that everyone knows the song and knows that those heights are coming, the ANTICIPATION was electric, the build each time before Jack hits that pedal and swings into the heavy part of the chorus, the “oh shit, HERE IT COMES,” like climbing to the top of a hill on a rollercoaster, EEEEEEE IT WAS AMAZING. And then just before the last verse, the guitar and bass dropped out and Jack just let us all sing the bass riff ourselves, “ohhhhh oh OH oh oh ohhhhh ohhhhhh,” while he sang over us and Carla kept time and it was MAGICAL. PERFECT. BRILLIANT. AMAAAAAAZING end to the show, I left on Cloud Nine Hundred.
And then! I stood in line for a while to get a t-shirt (during which time a crowd came up from the pit still singing “ohhhhh oh OH oh oh ohhhhh ohhhhhh,” it was VERY CUTE), and then we skipped and chattered and flailed our way down to Granville Street to get crepes right next to the Commodore, HELLO COMMODORE, THANK YOU FOR BRINGING ME MY BELOVED HEADSTONES, and-thus fortified-flailed our way back to the Skytrain (SKYTRAIN!), and had more debriefing, and also a few sexual fantasies about Jack, AND THEN we had to watch some of It Might Get Loud to close the circle between Zeppelin and Jack. And then I drove home and did not die, and crawled into bed at 4 a.m. and did NOT have to work the next day for once, and it was AWESOME.
DREAM. WEEKEND. OF AWESOME.
People who made this possible: thank you SO SO SO SO SO SO SO MUCH, it was an amaaaaaazing experience and I feel incredibly lucky to have had it. And special thanks to Desfinado for her fabulous hospitality and fabulous company! ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
ALSO. Though this entry is already insanely long enough, I did want to link a few videos as well. None of these are from our show-they asked people not to take pictures or record video, and apparently people either actually listened or the venue staff was unusually vigilant-which bums me out, but there’s some awesome stuff nonetheless. My “if you only watch one video” pick is this, from the AMEX Unstaged show recently… the first minute and a half is Jack tackling and then wrestling with Gary Oldman (seriously), and then it goes into a looooovely acoustic version of “Guess I’ll Just Go To Sleep” with the Peacocks. It goes on from there-more chatting with Gary and one more song-but those first two bits give you a pretty good idea of the situation.
Click to viewSUCH ADORABLE FACES ALL AROUND. <3333333333
And then here is an AWESOME rendition of “Ball and Biscuit,” with Los Buzzardos, SO FUCKING HOT:
Top Yourself, with the Peacocks (HNNNNGH):
Freedom At 21, with the Peacocks:
I’m Slowly Turning Into You, with the Peacocks:
The entire AMEX Unstaged show is WELL worth watching, IMO; you can still get the full two hours (very slightly fuzzy) here. The first half of the show is with the Peacocks, the second half with Los Buzzardos, and it is overall EXCELLENT.
Aaaaaaaaaaaand that is QUITE ENOUGH. Except to say THANK YOU GUYS AGAIN. <33333333333333333333333
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