22 Nov 2022

White Stripes and Blue Smoke: Jack White performs his 'Supply Chain Issues' Tour in Christchurch

6:27 pm on 23 November 2022

The stage was lit up in blue, much like White’s hair, and most of the merchandise and tour posters. Perhaps it was a deliberate effort to distance himself from the White Stripes, who notably only used red. Maybe he wants to highlight his love of the blues. It could have been a nod to Blue Smoke, the first record ever produced in Aotearoa. Maybe he just likes the colour. 

White hit the stage a little after 9, blue guitar and blue guitar lead to match his blue shirt and blue hair. Opening with a couple of songs from this year’s Fear of the Dawn, he shimmied back and forth across the stage, frequently stepping back from the microphone stand so he had space, both physically and musically, to let rip on his guitar.

 

It was only a couple of songs in though before he went to the White Stripes catalogue, with 'Dead Leaves in the Dirty Ground' taking things up a notch or two.

White was supported by Dominic Davis on bass, Daru Jones on drums, and Quincy McCrary on keyboards. The band were more than competent; they provided White with a rock-solid scaffold for him to build whatever he saw fit at the time.

The set was relentless. With next to no stage banter or downtime between songs, the band moved seamlessly from one song to the next, almost without prompt. On occasion, White would gesture instructions at them, and they would obligingly change direction - McCrary scuttling out from behind the piano to get in behind the Mellotron before the next song had begun.

 

But while the high points for the crowd were mainly White Stripes songs, this wasn’t a White Stripes gig; it was a Jack White gig. Having a tight rhythm section, as well as McCrary on keys, allowed White to not only run through the material from his newer releases, but also to rework and expand on a number of songs from the White Stripes catalogue.

'Hotel Yorba', from their breakthrough 2001 album White Blood Cells, was enhanced with plinking piano; 'Icky Thump' was driven by McCrary’s work on the keys., and 'Black Math' sounded thicker and fuzzier with White and Davis layering fuzz on top of fuzz. Perhaps more importantly, White’s instinctive rapport with the band allowed him to indulge himself in a number of extended interviews with his guitar.

 

White has had a busy year, touring relentlessly on the back of not one but two new albums released this year; the heavier Fear of the Dawn, as well as the softer Entering Heaven Alive. There were four songs from each, with a number from the latter coming towards the end of the regular set.

Around this time, the energy in the room - both in the crowd, and on the stage - notably dropped. It wasn’t White or the band’s fault - in fact, some of their most proficient work came through this period. However, the crowd just didn’t know these songs as well. Attention was drifting, and when White left the stage at the end of 'Freedom at 21', he didn’t seem entirely happy. It was too early for the night to end though, and after the crowd got appreciably vocal, the four were back for an encore. After launching into 'Steady As She Goes' - the biggest number in the Raconteurs catalogue - White changed guitar not once but twice. Still unhappy with the sound it was producing, he shifted across to the piano - all of this while the rhythm section continued on without pause. After a bit of tinkering from a guitar tech, White was back centre stage, but with the previously muted crowd now fully on board. Straight up after the nearly 10-minute take on 'Steady As She Goes' was 'Sixteen Salteens' from White’s debut solo record, Blunderbuss, which kept the tempo high.

 

Which brought us to the finale, which was, inevitably, 'Seven Nation Army'. White has written plenty of songs. He’s been playing more than 100 of them live just on this tour. He might have written better songs - more technically proficient, more heartfelt, cleverer lyrics. But 'Seven Nation Army' exists in a realm all on its own. Its unmistakable, infuriatingly simple riff has leapt from the garages and dive bars where the White Stripes made their name to the terraces of football stadia around the world. When rugby fans at the bottom of the world have adapted your song into a chant, you know that this song has a life of its own.

After one last guitar change, White booted up the opening riff, and both he and the crowd kicked off. He revelled in the adulation as the room, front to back, belted it out, hands in the air, as if they all cared about football and the All Whites had just qualified for the World Cup. You could see how it has become some an inescapable part of sport and mass entertainment; strangers bouncing up and down, arms around shoulders, cathartically belting out the riff. Except we weren’t on the terraces with a warm cup of overpriced beer; we were in the magnificent Christchurch Town Hall, listening to it being performed by the man who brought it into the world.

 

After a generous round of applause, they bowed one last time and were off. White’s voice was a little off at times - understandable for the last date at the end of a long world tour - and the audience drifted as White indulged some of his less-well known material. But pumped up by a taut, 4-song encore, the crowd left hoping that White’s first visit to the South Island won’t be his last.

Check out Charlotte Ryan interviewing Jack White  ahead of the tour, earlier this year. 

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