Jack White performs Tuesday at the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland. Photo by David James Swanson
In many ways, Jack White feels like the final traditional rock star. He’s one of the last people to become famous primarily for playing the guitar, and one of the last to pen a guitar riff that is chanted in sports stadiums around the world – that would be “Seven Nation Army,” his 2003 hit with the White Stripes, a song that closed his rousing concert Tuesday at Cross Insurance Arena.
He maintains a fabulous image; at times, he’s a shifty rascal like Bob Dylan, and at others, he’s as poised, coifed and confident as Michael Jackson. Along with former bandmate Meg White, he was one of the last artists to turn print music magazines on their head before the internet hoovered the mystery out of music. So it’s fitting that White is the first artist in years to play a non-metal rock concert at Portland’s biggest arena.
Much has changed for White since the last time he graced the stage at Cross Insurance Arena. That 2007 concert was with the White Stripes as that duo’s lifespan was winding down. He’s now been performing solo for nearly as long as the White Stripes were together, and this concert found him touring behind two albums released this year – “Fear of the Dawn” and “Entering Heaven Alive” – with a more robust ensemble that included a drummer, a bassist and a keyboardist. He has exchanged his former color palette of red, white and black for blue, white and black, sporting bright blue hair and a black suit, and playing under lights that alternated between blue and white. Somehow, he remains minimalist even while going maximalist.
One aspect remains consistent with White’s music and his live performance: It contains a visceral physicality that follows in the Detroit tradition of Iggy Pop and the MC5, even if his music pulls from other inspiration. Drummer Daru Jones provides the same kind of powerful approach that White Stripes drummer Meg White did, often leaping in his seat for extra oomph. White likes the drums to be up in the sound mix, crashing against his guitar and a honky-tonk piano, sounding like a boogie-woogie jam falling down a flight of stairs.
Indeed, the first songs of the show, from the “Fear of the Dawn” opener to “Taking Me Back” through the White Stripes classic “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground,” were jarringly, almost punishingly, loud – a bracing invitation into White’s world. Conversely, as the show mellowed out, the momentum began to build. White’s new records are his finest work since his White Stripes heyday, a sprawling array of songs that pulls many different musical styles under the big tent of his particular idiosyncrasies. He also makes fine use of piano, whether played in concert by him or keyboardist Quincy McCrary, using it to evoke the majesty of the Rolling Stones on songs like “A Tip From You to Me” or Dr. John-like grooves on songs like “Trash Tongue Talker.”
In a set in which one song flowed into the next, sometimes with brief instrumental passages in between, he clearly treated the White Stripes songs as the modern standards that they are, reveling in the shared joy for songs like “Ball and Biscuit.” This sensation was perhaps enhanced by the fact that everyone was required to put their cellphones into a sealed pouch upon entry (meaning I had to use an actual notepad rather than my Notepad app).
I’m not sure to what extent this improved the audience experience, but I’m also not the one who has to look at sea of phones rather than faces from the stage. And when White led the crowd through sing-alongs of his better-known material, he was assured fully engaged participants – artists and audience, creating a moment together, one that’s gone forever until the next time.
Robert Ker is a freelance writer in Portland. He can be reached at bobzker@gmail.com.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
