Jack White, Glasgow review: 'kept the energy crackling'
For this final stop on his European tour, Jack White plundered his wider back catalogue as well as performing material from last year’s stealth-released album, No Name, writes Fiona Shepherd
Jack White / Stevie Jackson & the Reverberations, Barrowland, Glasgow ★★★★
Former White Stripes mainman Jack White may have slowed the breathless pace of record releases in recent years but his live shows remain unrelenting, athletic rock workouts. White and three-piece band, including his old Raconteurs compadre Patrick Keeler on drums, closed their European tour in Glasgow with a blunt set of maximum rock’n’roll, hitting the stage with a Stooges-like take on the tradition of the R&B intro jam and trying out a turbo-charged blast of Eddie Cochran’s Summertime Blues for fit.
Last summer, White stealth-released his sixth solo album, No Name, with sides dubbed Heaven and Hell and Black and Blue. He delved straight in to side one with the hoary classic rock of Old Scratch Blues and kept the energy crackling with the caveman call-and-response of That’s How I’m Feeling, while a typically well-turned out crew maintained the flow of guitars.
As always, he roundly plundered his wider back catalogue, revisiting the peppy White Stripes’ singalong Hotel Yorba and turning up the fuzz on the nosebleed punk metal boogie of Black Math, while Raconteurs’ fans could lap up the taut acid boogie of Broken Boy Soldier and Carolina Drama, featuring Jon Lord-style baroque'n'roll keyboard licks from Bobby Emmett.
The short main set was followed by a generous encore offering funk grooves, torrid rock melodrama and a couple of undeniable anthems in The Raconteurs’ debut hit Steady As She Goes and the mighty White Stripes standard Seven Nation Army, a perennial that will not be defeated.
Perhaps inspired by the brawn of the headliners, Belle and Sebastian guitarist Stevie Jackson amped up his support set, appearing as Stevie Jackson & the Reverberations, featuring common members with Belle and Sebastian and Jackson-penned selections from their catalogue, including So in the Moment from most recent album Late Developers and a psychedelic rock take on Perfect Couples.
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