It was a wonder no-one put out a Bat-Signal. Resembling a maniacal supervillain dubbed The Bluesman – blue hair, striped trousers, statue of himself at the back of the stage – one-time White Stripes main man Jack White tore across a cinematically draped Hammersmith stage.
For his first major London gig since 2018, he spewed frenzied blues rock like a man not so much possessed as unleashed.
His pandemic was productive. White performed regularly online, laid plans for a London branch of his Third Man Records stores and wrote two new albums: one rock – the recent Fear of the Dawn – and the folkier Entering Heaven Alive, due next month.
Over 90, often furious, minutes onstage, all this pent-up music seemed to cascade out of him in a torrent of virtuoso riffing, cranking the crowd into a cult-like reverie from the off. Bathed in blue light, backed by enigmatic visuals of orbs and moons and bristling with wildman energy, he resembled a feral showman from some shadow Vegas.
White’s recent solo albums have set out to challenge his core audience with experimental sound collages, spoken-word segments and, egad, rapping. Such manoeuvres usually come with an unhealthy disdain for the grubby idea of playing the hits, but Jack is not precious. Of his solo material, he stuck solidly to the rockier end, even if What’s the Trick? smacked of the Beastie Boys and Hi-De-Ho came drenched in menacing hip-hop chords and a taped rap from Q-Tip. For the rest, he dipped liberally into the catalogues of his array of previous bands: The Dead Weather (for the volcanic funk blues of I Cut Like a Buffalo), The Raconteurs (a phenomenal Steady, as She Goes) and, most generously, The White Stripes.
Here, having a full band indulging his untamed guitar leanings highlighted the Led Zeppelin influence on trampolining blues songs like Black Math and reworked others, perhaps, into what Jack was hearing in his head all along. I Think I Smell a Rat and Apple Blossom became dark cabaret tumbles; Fell in Love With a Girl spent a few minutes as a ponderous clap-along before hitting full throttle; the once introspective ballad The Same Boy You’ve Always Known expanded to arena size.
Jack clearly relished every second of it. “They’re telling me I have to get off the stage but I don’t want to get off the stage,” he babbled three songs into the encore, claiming this was the best London crowd he’d ever played to and launching into a crazed slide guitar solo that shape-shifted into Howlin’ Wolf’s I Asked for Water (She Gave Me Gasoline). End it must, though, with a final celebratory Seven Nation Army, a terrace anthem impassioned. Kapow.
