Jack White - CBGB Festival, 27th September 2025

And here's another standout performance. The Rock/blues king is still putting it all out there. Jack White at the CBGB Festival, 2025. 

 

Jack White - Live at Edgefield (5/24/25)

I haven't been celebrating music enough. Let's catch up.

 

Jimmy Page & Roy Harper - St Ives, UK 1984 (New Video)

Wonderful new video posted by Mark Zep on August 11, 2022 - in other words, on the anniversary of Led Zeppelin's appearance at Knebworth on August 11, 1979. 

Beautiful dual acoustic performance of Roy Harper's Same old Rock. Nice to see Jimmy Page playing well and looking healthier in this one. The audience must have been stoked to see the pair of them together. 

(Found via Mark Donohue's Heart of Markness podcast.)

Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - When the Levee Breaks (Glastonbury 2022)

I don't have the main strength to go to festivals these days, but I sure appreciate the live feeds they have. 

This is the sort of performance I'd have given my eye teeth to have seen back in the day. Robert Plant doing Levee with a kind of Kashmir vibe. The audience don't seem to know what it is they have in front of them. 

Led Zeppelin - Live in Landover, MD (Feb. 10th, 1975) - 8mm film

I love the way new Led Zeppelin films and tapes continue to surface after all these years. Enjoy this slice of history. 

You all follow Heart of Markness, I hope? 

Mark Donohue's podcast plays selections from the new soundtapes as they arrive. Bookmark it!

The Raconteurs live at Third Man Records' tenth anniversary bash, April 6th - Tour dates

The Raconteurs (Jack White, Brendan Benson, Patrick Keeler and Little Jack Lawrence) came out with a bang to celebrate Third Man Records' tenth birthday and the release of their first album in ten years.

The "ultra" tickets to the show were offered through the Third Man subscription service, the Vault, and needless to say although I joined the online queue in time, I didn't get any, being 1081st in line.  Pretty popular band. (Although I think the goodie bag, containing things like test pressings and other collectible tat also enticed a fair few of the sign ups. Along with the rare opportunity to see legendary bands like The Gories and The Soledad Brothers.)

Anyway, I wasn't there on April 6th, but surprisingly for a Jack White show, cameras were allowed, and so there are videos.

set list photo by Amanda

Youtube user VideoGremmie uploaded the videos below.

Consolers of the Lonely, with the Racs introduced by Jack's mum



Old Enough



Excellent version of the southern gothic tale Carolina Drama



The tour de force Blue Veins



A cover of the Go track, Trash, along with the Racs' new album cover of Donovan's Hey Gyp



There's at least one video of the whole set floating around and if it goes public, I'll put it here.

Meanwhile, tickets for the Raconteurs' north American shows go on sale tomorrow.

July 12: Masonic Temple Theatre – Detroit, MI

July 14: Eagles Ballroom – Milwaukee, WI

July 15: Armory – Minneapolis, MN

July 18: WaMu Theater at CenturyLink Field Events Center – Seattle, WA

July 19: Queen Elizabeth Theatre – Vancouver, BC

July 21: Edgefield – Troutdale, OR

July 23: Fox Theater – Oakland, CA

July 26: Greek Theatre – Los Angeles, CA

July 27: Santa Barbara Bowl – Santa Barbara, CA

July 28: Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre – San Diego, CA

August 11: Knoxville Civic Auditorium – Knoxville, TN

August 12: Egyptian Room at Old National Centre – Indianapolis, IN

August 13: Stage AE (Indoors) – Pittsburgh, PA

August 15: Agora Theatre – Cleveland, OH

August 17: The Anthem – Washington, DC

August 18: The Fillmore Charlotte – Charlotte, NC

August 20: Township Auditorium – Columbia, SC

August 21: Tabernacle – Atlanta, GA

August 22: Tabernacle – Atlanta, GA

August 29: Ryman Auditorium – Nashville, TN

August 30: Ryman Auditorium – Nashville, TN

September 3: Red Hat Amphitheater – Raleigh, NC

September 6: Hammerstein Ballroom – New York, NY

September 7: Kings Theatre – Brooklyn, NY

September 9: House of Blues – Boston, MA

September 12: Sony Centre for the Performing Arts – Toronto, ON

September 13: Express Live! Indoor Pavilion – Columbus, OH

October 12: The Criterion – Oklahoma City, OK

October 13: Cain’s Ballroom – Tulsa, OK

October 14: Cain’s Ballroom – Tulsa, OK

October 17: Arvest Bank Theatre at The Midland – Kansas City, MO

October 18: The Pageant – St. Louis, MO

'Tyrannosaurus Rex - live middle earth london - 1967.

Introduced by John Peel and opening with a John's Children song, no less.

Jack White, August 18th 2018, Rabobank Theater Bakersfield

I am, shock horror, not an OG White Stripes fan. I gave up on rock music by the late eighties, and although I moved to the US at around the same time, where I could be expected to ride the grunge wave, I didn't. Ending up close to LA, where the scene was pay-to-play Sunset Strip hair metal, I wasn't persuaded that things were any better. (I didn't have a lot of exposure to Orange County punk, otherwise things might have been different.) So, from 1990 to 2008 I was just listening to hip-hop and EDM and that's it. About then, late oughties, I asked a friend from a legacy Led Zeppelin group, newly energized by the 02 reunion, if there was anything equally exciting in the world today, and that's how I heard about the Raconteurs.

I really dug the Racs. They had the power-pop sensibilities to write the hooks and melodies and yet had the attack of a hard rock band. By the time I was turned on to them, it was already too late for new music from them, but when the Dead Weather formed in 2009 I was all over it. I forget how many times I saw them - 6 or 8 - and I unambiguously loved them. In some ways, I thought of them as LARPing heavy rock music, but in an affectionate and very accurate way. The Raconteurs were vastly different with their Tin Pan Alley hooks, but equally effective. The common denominator was Jack...so I bought all the White Stripes albums. I liked them but they've never been on my heavy rotation playlist.

Although I bought the subsequent Jack White solo albums they haven't, to me, alway had that savage attack and hard edge I prefer in music. For every High Ball Stepper there's a plaintive ballad. For that reason, I hadn't gone to any solo shows, until yesterday.

But, it was a sojourn. Bakersfield is a long drive for us. It was enlivened by a truck full of tyrannosaurs racing us from Irvine to LA in heavy traffic.

Once through LA and the byzantine single-lane mazes the I5 takes, it was straight sailing up the Tejon Pass and through the Meth Desert to Oildrillerville, stopping only to briefly get lost in Valencia, home of Six Flags Magic Mountain.

(That picture of Six Flags wasn't taken yesterday - it's from December, taken by a colleague at one of my previous work places in Valencia. The hills were on fire at the time.)

The hotel we'd chosen actually attaches to the Rabobank Theater. So, although it was 106F out, the rest of the evening was the most civilized experience I've ever had at a gig. There were Yondr people there to intercept and redirect the foolhardy who did not have a paper ticket and could have locked their phones in their Yondr bag prior to getting in. The will-call people were polite and organized. We had seats. There were ushers with flashlights to get us to our seats. The beer queue was manageable. You could drink beer in the seats. (You were specifically enjoined not to bring in "cans or other projectiles" but apparently cans bought inside the venue are not potential projectiles.) The lights went down at almost at the advertised time.

The pre-show music was all hip-hop, which was fine by me. Toes were tapped. The lights went down and the man in front of me, who I swear was Jerry Garcia, lit up a joint. How he did it without an open flame I'll never know, but there it was. (Folks, he bogarted his joint. Maybe it wasn't really Jerry.) The support act was William Tyler and I'm sorry but no. The music - unaccompanied guitar - was pretty good and would be stellar on the player if you're painting a room or having a nice garden party or something, but as a warm up act for Jack, it just cooled me down. I'm convinced he played Led Zeppelin's Going To California eleven times, sometimes on acoustic, sometimes on electric and once in a slightly ragtime way. He was a very polite, humble southern gentleman and did not overstay his welcome.

He cleared off and a large number of what I've called Homepride Flour Men

arrived, prompting STB to wonder out loud what Jack's trilby budget is for the tour. A few minutes later, the screen behind the stage started showing the countdown clock. Every now and again the silhouette of Jack would turn up and wind the clock back or move it forward. This clock is great - nothing is as engaging as a counter, as anyone who has written or seen one of those movie scenes where "it's a race against time!" can attest. As soon as anything is "on the clock", whether it's disarming a bomb or getting to the hospital while in labor, a timer automatically generates interest and excitement. I nominate Countdown Clock for support act of the year.

Then the band arrived and started jamming, leaving us in suspense for a minute or two before Jack White appeared. I was prepared for the band to know the new, solo music inside out. To be perfectly rehearsed and yet able to jam. To follow the bandleader's cues and yet be loose enough to shine. And they did all that perfectly. I wasn't prepared for them to accompany Jack as he did some of the hardest, quietest, rawest and most emotional of his tracks, old and new. He sung his heart out with You've Got Her in Your Pocket and I'm a Martyr for my Love for You. The band stayed out of the way while still supporting Black Math and I Think I Smell a Rat. The gentle Humoresque was a jaw-dropping experience. Jack seems so vulnerable singing some of these songs that it often seems he's lonely even with all these people behind him and all the audience in front of him. The White Stripes songs that seemed abstract to me on the old albums came alive - I could finally see what the long time fans see in them.  I don't ever recall going to another show where the artist seemed so open and truthful. And rocking and banging and heavy, and light and ethereal.

Because I'm me, I'm going to catalog some irritants. The LED blue lights are too blue. It's overwhelming. If you pay good money, you expect to have the whole spectrum or at least cyan, magenta and yellow.

Second, the stage set up. The semi-circular enclosure that lifts the other musicians above him bothered me. It looks much steeper and deeper than in the official photograph (above) from my Section E Row OO. At first, I spent several songs thinking it privileged him over the other musicians, which might not be surprising given he's the headliner, but separating the band members is not rock'n'roll. It's odd to see the guitarist literally on another level from his band and I kept thinking it made him look like a diva, a Shirley Bassey or Beyonce, divorced from his backing band.

After a while, I thought it disprivileged him. It made him look like he was the slave in the arena in the coliseum, left to battle lions alone while the freemen and nobility sat in the tiers above, absolved from responsibility to fight.

Thirdly, the picture of the coliseum floor looks universally blue in the photo. It doesn't look like that in real life. In the moment, you can see that the fretcloth of the antique amplifiers is not blue, but a greyish beige, a faded 60's color. The LED blue surrounding it emphasizes the workmanlike mid-century look of the little pile of amplification inside the curve of the band's risers. It looks like a museum piece, a diorama featuring a critically endangered Homo rockus in his natural habitat. That bothered the hell out of me. I'd prefer the amps to be behind, where they're supposed to be, rather than showcased with Jack. They're superannuated, and even if they're essential for the sound there's no reason to foreground them in 2018. The White Stripes are, genuinely, over.

It did occur to me that the steps up to the band only exist because Jack has so much energy that he'd boil and blow up like a steam locomotive if he didn't have flywheel steps to run up and down at critical moments.

Up there with the greats. 12/10 would go again.

Blues and Gospel Train: Sister Rosetta Tharpe and others at Manchester station, 1964

This is the program from which that Sister Rosetta Tharpe song, Didn't It Rain, is taken. You know, the one everyone shares and says it's rare. The film also includes Muddy Waters (a bit) and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee (a lot).

Many English people study trains and train stations the same way some people study the blues. So unlike most YouTube videos, you get comments like this:

mlw61
Exactly 50 years on. The recording was made on a rainy day in Manchester (UK) on 7th May 1964. There is dispute about exactly where it was filmed, but TV producer Johnny Hamp says it was on Wilbraham Road, Chorlton Cum Hardey in South Manchester. The station was closed around 1959, but still had freight trains rolling through. I think it was closed permanently in 1967 and was knocked down. The site was used as a cycle way, with Safeway opening a store next to it (this is now a Morrisons). Over the last year or so, tracks have been re-layed and it is now part of Manchester's Metrolink Tram Station. 

mlw61Around 11 minutes in, you can hear the rain battering down. Manchester has a reputation of being a rainy city (and here's proof). This lead to Sister Rosetta Tharpe to change the song originally meant for the programme to "Didn't It Rain". Hence the hilarity at the start of the song :-) 

Neil Ferguson-LeeHi mlw61 - can I add to your observations? The station was indeed called Wilbraham Road and did close in 1958 although you are quite right that trains were still running down that line including through passenger trains. Having a TV show there that evening would have been rather disruptive and they would have had to have diverted trains off that line. As it was a Thursday, it must have been extra disruptive.Just one detail: you have got the station confused wit Chorlton-cum-Hardy which is the one next to Morrisons. That one did close in 1967 although at Chorlton Junction (which is where St. Werberghs Road tram stop is), if you turned left then the next station was indeed Wilbraham Road.What would I give to have been there on that night!

(I have no idea why one of them uses "freight" instead of "goods" train though. Maybe that's English now.)

The BBC ran an article in 2014, interviewing Johnny Hamp and an attendee. This tells the whole story. 

Dead Weather: I can't hear you (live video 2010)

House of Blues, July 2010. 

I was there!

I love the twin lead guitars. I have to say there's been some drastically crap dual lead guitar playing over the last fifty years, but this works, possibly because Dean and Jack show no signs of even knowing there's someone else on the stage. Off in their own little worlds, reacting to the music. 

I also like the way it's been filmed in B&W by a mole person with a camera that fought every step of the way to only focus on the little light on one of the amps.

Josh Homme and Dean Fertita on Jools Holland

It's nice to see Dean Fertita become a star after his stint with the Dead Weather. To be honest I could do with more Dead Weather instead but them's the breaks.

This clip from Jools Holland is only available for 29 days from October 4th, 2017. It is, however, viewable internationally, unlike the show itself on iPlayer.

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05hznkt

Killing in the Name by the Wackids

KILLING IN THE NAME (RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE) // ROCK'N'TOYS SESSIONS (THE WACKIDS)

That amazing solo instrument is an Otamatone, and I want one. There seems to be a plethora of YouTube vids of rockers making music with them and at least half the fun is the smile on the little guy's face as they do so. 

Miley Cyrus's Wrecking Ball

Mark Ronson's Uptown Funk

Jack White with Alison Mosshart: Love Interruption (Live video Dublin 26/6/14)

Thanks to uploader acquiescefc, Jack White's Love Interruption from his debut solo album Blunderbuss, performed with his male backing band The Buzzards - and Alison Mosshart.

The Kills: Impossible Tracks (Video Late Show February 2017)

The Dead Weather - Lose the Right live performance and Alison's lyric-writing technique

The fourth and final - I almost wrote fourth and vinyl there - Dead Weather technique video and live performance is up today. They chose Billboard for the honor, and Billboard reciprocated by spelling Mosshart incorrectly in the URL and getting the bass player's name wrong. It's okay, we all know who you are, Jack Lawrence!

As in the previous three, the article isn't very informative but the video is.  In it, we hear that Alison writes lyrics while driving, as in actually writes on a piece of paper while driving, which sounds dangerous to me. She won't listen to her own voice on tape - odd for a famous singer - so she won't record the lyrics, so I politely suggest she buys a voice-to-text app. It will have all those funny errors robots make when they listen to the spoken word, but that'll just make the lyrics even more interesting.  (I think her spoken voice is lovely - she has a perfect accent and just enough grainy tenor to make it gritty.)

Nice car too. There's also an appearance by a Brake Hedgehog (the best kind) and several rather pushy mannequins. The featured song is Lose The Right.

The Dead Weather: Live performance of Let Me Through and guitar technique

Third in the series of four Dead Weather technique videos:

Guitar World has the exclusive on Dean Fertita's guitar playing with the band, which he illustrates afterwards during the band's performance of Let Me Through from the new album Dodge and Burn.

Dead Weather - Be Still (live performance, video)

Continuing the Dead Weather's Dodge and Burn album release blitz, a live performance of Be Still for you.

I note that the mannequins, including the Madonna of the Amplifier, are unable to follow the injunction to Be Still and move around capriciously. But not as capriciously as the goat, in a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo appearance.

Goats are cool.



No "how to" instrumental technique on this one, alas.

The album drops tomorrow, so I'll be at Best Buy, angling for a free t shirt.

The Dead Weather: Mile Markers and bass technique, Late Show performance (videos)

This week it's lucky Mojo who gets the exclusive on the Dead Weather video release and not only new, but a premiere performance of a song.

The song is Mile Markers, from the soon-to-be-released album Dodge and Burn, and and the 'technique' part of the film is handled by Little Jack Lawrence, who is all about that bass.  He demonstrates - oops, wrote demon states at first there - the use of his bass microsynth and the riff from Blue Blood Blues and Mile Markers.



I'm surprised Little Jack has such long glossy hair, because when he switched on that microsynth pedal, the sound blew mine right off, and I'm standing behind a monitor.


Added: for a bonus, here's the Dead Weather's performance of I Feel Love (Every Million Miles) on the Stephen Colbert Late Show:

The Dead Weather: Hang You From the Heavens (new version) and drum technique (video)

Modern Drummer  has an exclusive on a Dead Weather's video on instrument technique.

Today they are showcasing Jack White himself on drums, and three other videos will be forthcoming.

Today's is a ten minute video, starting with Jack explaining his drumkit and why it is the way it is, and (at the 6:08 mark) going into a kickass new version of Hang You From the Heavens featuring the whole band (authentic non-doppleganger version) a pile of tires and some of the mannequins from the I Feel Love (Every Million Miles) video premiered last week.



During the song, Alison plays herself. The "Alison" at the six minute mark appears to be Jack's little daughter, Scarlett.  Who the "Alison" is in the first minute of the video, I have no clue. I thought was Jack at first (same nasolabial folds) but unless Jack had his Adam's Apple shaved for the part, I guess it isn't him. Any guesses?

Dead Weather - I Feel Love (Every Million Miles) - video

The "live" video for the Dead Weather's new single, I Feel Love (Every Million Miles) is here.



It really works live - shame that they're not touring the new album.  Jack White seems to have upped his game on the drums and Dean Fertita makes a barebones riff fill the sonic space.The video looks simple, but there's a lot going on - watch Alison's doppleganger. And why is the mysterious Madonna figure crouched over a Fender amp and not the more usual manger?

I love the video effect that makes bright white shine black, like an old Image Orthicon tube camera on some beloved old black and white show that boasted all the happening beat combos.