Live Review: Jack White At The Corner Hotel, Melbourne
As urban legend became reality, The Corner Hotel, a dingy pub in Richmond collectively remembered the moment it was the epicentre of music history. It won’t be the last we hear about it.
Jack White @ Corner Hotel (David James Swanson)
Earlier this week Consequence.net named Jack White their Artist of the Year. Now whatever you think of Consequence (sometimes adulatory, sometimes great) or what you think of the former frontman of The White Stripes and sometimes frontman of The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather (sometimes the subject of adulation, sometimes great) - I don’t think anyone saw this coming 12 months ago.
He wasn’t in pop wilderness per se, but he had definitely gone off-piste. He was now the sheriff of Third Man Records in Nashville, Tennessee; having extricated himself from the world of pop music and he was seemingly content spending most of his days repressing old blues records onto wax.
Nothing left to prove? Artistically removed from current tastes? Disenchanted by the Spotify/Ticketmaster duopoly? A betting man would have money on all three.
So how did a man, so reclusive from the pop music machine (including the media) find himself directly under the spotlight once again? That would be the abrasive, chaotic, and occasionally genius album released this year called No Name.
Anyone that has followed the career of Jack White would tell you that one of the defining characteristics of this album is its authenticity. This is the sound of Jack, the lone ranger, let loose. This is wild west shit. If you thought Icky Thump was hanging onto reality by a thread in 2007, you should hear White deliver a sermon as the fictional Archbishop Harold Holme; howling about the self-serving sacrilege of using religion for one’s own means as only an exaggerated southern preacher man could do. It is deliriously unhinged, utterly enthralling and unlike anything else released in 2024. Or maybe even this decade.
And now he’s here. Booking Jack White to play The Corner Hotel is catnip for those who like their bluesy rock’n’roll loud, sweaty and behind the most annoying pylon in Melbourne. This is the venue that in 2002 whilst touring The White Stripes best album (fight me) White Blood Cells, that Jack came up with the riff for Seven Nation Army during the soundcheck. So it’s a homecoming of sorts. None more so than for the wankers who are loudly telling those around them that they were there that night almost 23 years ago as if they wrote the fucking song.
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There is an undeniable air of mystery about this gig. Yes, Jack White is ostensibly touring No Name, but he has entered his DGAF era. Like Bob Dylan, no one knows what this man will play on stage. He is an enigma. Sometimes he opens with a Muddy Waters cover. Last month he opened with the title track from the 1971 album by San Francisco garage rock band The Flamin’ Groovies. Earlier this year he opened with I Wanna Be Your Dog by The Stooges. This man is cooler than you. He also plays guitar much better than you. Who knows what he will do in front of you…
The gig is so mysterious that the Corner Hotel staff have been advised to not tell anyone when the man himself is on stage. Apparently this is a gig not a concert. In the sense that kids who tour around the country in the back of a van play gigs not concerts. “There are no set times maaaan, he’ll be on when he’s ready” is the imagined voice of the roadie speaking to me when I ask the front of house staff politely. But even they admit it’s very odd and it has the bartenders spooked: “Dude we are licensed for live music till 1am, how long is this guy gonna play for?” The overtly sweaty man with pure fear in his eyes says as he passes me a beer. There is the feeling in the room that this gig could be one for the ages.
And like Bob Dylan, there is also an unsaid feeling that you are there to see the artist not to hear certain songs. Bob doesn’t care if you like Highway 61 Revisited; he wants to play religious hymns about the Lord Jesus Christ. Legend has it that years ago Wilco played an hour’s worth of Woody Guthrie covers to a perplexed Melbourne audience, and I don’t think there is a single person inside The Corner Hotel who is under the delusion that they are going to hear a Greatest Hits set from the amalgamation of Jack’s disparate discography. But earlier than expected, at the very friendly hour of 9.15pm White emerges to a wall of noise from an overly excitable audience. Unsurprisingly, he has gear that quickly drowns us out. Gear that would be worth more than my mother’s house.
And before I go any further, the bar staff needn't have worried. We’re all done by 10.35pm. The pizza place next door still has a guitarist noodling his way through a John Mayer cover as punters file out onto Swan Street. It would have all seemed a bit school night if the quality of the performance hadn’t left the mouths agape of all who witnessed it. But Jack is definitely here for a good time, not a long time.
The performance is one outrageously long jam. There is no break, there is no silence, even when Jack yelps his excitement at a grovelling crowd, it is done so over the feedback of guitars and a drum fill that is signalling their next move. White demands your attention but he also commands you to keep up. There is no time to order a beer or go to the bathroom, he is going to pummel your senses for close to 90 minutes and you are going to stand there and enjoy it.
The opening four songs is essentially No Name live - with his band as taut as a jazz ensemble. Notably Bobby Emmett, Jack’s keyboardist is a wizard, he’s like Ray Manzarek-levels good. But the set up on stage is specifically designed for improv, with Jack’s drummer Patrick Keeler performing front of stage right where he can watch and react to his every move - not hidden up the back like a lowly drummer of a radio friendly rock band. At times their eyes lock like they are falling in love, and they probably are considering how well they play together. But this is what signifies that this is a band, not the Jack White show.
After rolling through sides A and B of No Name, the band dole out the bangers. Little Bird into I Cut Like A Buffalo into Black Math (!!!) into Offend In Every Way - you can easily forget the strength of the man’s arsenal until it is wielded - and it’s not just the quality of the songs but his unbelievable guitar playing. Enough words have been written in GUITAR MAGAZINE WEEKLY (probably not a thing, but you get the gist), but the man can play the axe. And even as reputation precedes him, just seeing his mastery of the instrument in real time is a sight to behold. You don’t realise how average other guitarists are until you watch Jack White play the guitar.
By the time he finishes his set with the criminally underrated Ball & Biscuit, you can add tightrope walker to his list of talents; as he so deftly balanced the evening between his bluesy proclivities and his undeniable history as the most successful garage rock revivalist of this century. But I can’t have been the only one shocked with his departure at the one hour mark. I could have easily done with a few Woody Guthrie covers.
Thankfully, the gang are back as soon as they left and open the encore with Archbishop Harold Holmes. Now the rock history nerds will tell you White grew up Catholic and had been accepted to a seminary before meeting the devil at the crossroads and trading his soul to become one of this century’s most innovative guitarists, so this song is even more morally complex than I previously explained. But the fact that whilst performing it he raps the lyrics in the cadence of one of Detroit’s other most famous artists makes the entire persona even more ludicrous. It has to be heard to be believed. Top marks.
The audience is then treated to a super-rare performance of Screwdriver from the White Stripes debut album, and what is most apparent is the through line. From 1999 to 2024 the man has been harvesting the 12-bar blues and the fact he can piece together songs from his entire career into one feedback-drenched suite is a testament to his commitment to the bit. And his talent.
Pleasingly it seems he still gets a thrill from play-acting as an NME cover artist, with a smirk of self-awareness writ large on his face whenever he plays songs from a time in his life where words like “rock’s saviours” would be scrawled across the front page without a hint of irony. No moreso than during Hotel Yorba where it’s hard to tell who is having more fun, the crowd or the musician.
The only predictable part of the evening was its conclusion. Even if it still managed to warm the hearts of the crowd and provide the Corner Hotel with another decade’s worth of PR, it was still very cool to hear Jack say “I just so happened to write the fucking riff to this song in this room, 20 fucking years ago” as the opening notes of Seven Nation Army loosely twanged over a loop of feedback.
And it’s nice to know that the sentimentality isn’t lost on him and that we are all here for the same reason. This is a celebration of one of the most influential songs of the century. And the chant from the crowd as the song rang out would have made the Belgium football team Club Brugge KV happy. And if that is an oblique reference it only speaks to the incomprehensible reach of this song. Played live, at the volume Jack enjoys, it’s as if your heart has gone into arrhythmia.
If authenticity was No Name’s greatest asset, it’s probably because White now seems to be completely at peace with his place in the music world. No longer under pressure to please anyone, so he can now do it on his own terms. He’s still always going to play Seven Nation Army for you, but you better also enjoy some Bo Diddley-inspired swamp-rock blues along the way.
And whilst this gig might not be one for the history books in terms of its length or soundcheck trivia, after the long withheld acknowledgement from the artist himself, it was a fitting loud and sweaty celebration of a moment in time.
As urban legend became reality, The Corner Hotel, a dingy pub in Richmond collectively remembered the moment it was the epicentre of music history. It won’t be the last we hear about it.
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