Rockstar Jack White called out Texas’ richest and perhaps most controversial resident at a Tuesday night performance at the Moody Amphitheatre.
“You can make a lot of money while the world burns, Elon!” White sang at the concert, which had a strict no-phone policy. “You can’t be alive in Austin without knowing his name.”
White adapted the lyrics of the track “Dollar Bill” to accommodate the diss. The song was one of several performed Tuesday night off his latest release, July 10’s Frozen Charlotte. The stage reflected the new album’s cover, with a large skeleton figure behind White.
In an era of cash-grab throwaway new releases by legacy rock ‘n’ roll acts — and the tours behind them in front of crowds that wish they would “just play the hits” — Frozen Charlotte is a must-listen. Full of raw, rock ‘n’ roll urgency, its songs were some of the highest-energy moments of the set.
“Dollar Bill” was one such track, blending White’s roots-inspired slide guitar on a 1950s Kay Archtop with futuristic pitch shifts reminiscent of Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello, thanks to prominent use of a DigiTech Whammy pedal.
Much like White’s faithful preservation of early blues, the career-spanning set was a historic document in its own right, drawing from the famous bands White has helmed in his quest to create new and enduring folk music for our time.
White Stripes songs featured throughout the performance, including “Black Math,” “The Union Forever,” “Fell in Love With a Girl” and “The Hardest Button to Button.” “Icky Thump” and “I’m Slowly Turning Into You” featured in the encore.
Raconteurs tracks “Carolina Drama” and “Steady, As She Goes” bookended the set with yet another of White’s successful Detroit projects.
Even “Cut Like a Buffalo” by The Dead Weather — Jack White’s Nashville supergroup — made an appearance.
Composed of Alison Mosshart (The Kills), Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age, Karen O, Iggy Pop) and Jack Lawrence (Greenhornes, the Raconteurs, Karen O), The Dead Weather remains one of White’s best projects to date.
And then, of course, there was the obvious finale, the White Stripes anthem “Seven Nation Army” — which contains what some consider the most recognizable melody produced in the 21st Century. Sung at sports games and other events, the recognizable guitar part has taken on what White has called a “folk music vibration” in its ubiquity, independent of its original recording.
For nearly every song in the set, White sank into the groove and embellished on top of bare bones, drawing out heavy metal riffage, swamp blues and even dub interludes, using what were once basic musical ideas as a trailhead for further exploration.
A cover of Otis Rush “All Your Love (I Miss Loving)” and “Delta Bound,” originally a 1930s blues track by Rosetta Howard & The Harlem Hamfats, further anchored the set in White’s deep and abiding love of the blues.
White’s guitar frequently synced up with or traded off phrasing in a call-and-response with Bobby Emmett on keyboard. The Detroit organist, who also plays with Sturgill Simpson, rocked his Hammond back and forth with one hand as the other danced across the keys and provided churchy fills.
White was also joined by Patrick Keeler of the Raconteurs, Afghan Whigs and Greenhornes on drums, who celebrated his birthday that night. White’s childhood friend Dominic Davis — who grew up in the same Southwest Detroit neighborhood — rounded out the lineup on bass.
The band — well-accustomed to playing with each other both in the studio and on the road — was able to loosen grooves with silent pauses, nearly to the point of making one wonder if they’d lost the thread, only to fall back in together in perfect lockstep with astonishing ferocity. This was a grouping that not only backed White up but elevated him to new heights.
The crowd joined in on singalongs of White’s most iconic lyrics like a gang of soccer hooligans. The no-phones policy — sometimes derided as part of White’s Willie Wonka-esque eccentricity or archaic Luddite persona — had made the audience all the more invested in the shared experience we created together.
After all, what is folk music if not a shared, malleable and participatory musical experience?
White closed out the night thanking “factory workers, day laborers, […] Mexican Americans living in Texas” and all those who spent their “hard-earned dollar” to attend the show, further underscoring the mythos of the modern folk hero that had appeared before us.
All photos courtesy of Moody Amphitheatre.
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