MUSIC PREMIERES
Jack White’s four solo albums in the years that followed the breakup of the White Stripes are explorations of styles that show multiple other sides of his musicianship, veering into R&B and blues and experimental styles far from the straight-ahead, blistering rock and roll he’d laid down with the band that put him on the map. Those albums are all cool and often great, but it’s hard to deny that although his fans like, respect and appreciate them — along with side projects like the Raconteurs and Dead Weather — secretly they wished he’d just put together a small rock band, plug in, turn the volume up and let rip.
Well, that’s exactly what he did with his fiery new album “No Name,” and he did that and lots more over the course of a 90-minute set that shook the floor of the intimate 800-capacity White Eagle Hall in Jersey City, New Jersey, just across the Hudson from Manhattan. With just drummer Patrick Keller, bassist Dominic Davis and keyboardist Bobby Emmett in tow, he blazed through most of the new album and a Muddy Waters cover before digging deep into White Stripes classics for most of the rest of the night.
There was no blue hair or elaborate costumes or multiple musicians — he wore a black jacket (doffed midway through the show) and a black tee and his hair is back to its natural, wavy, parted-in-the-middle black. The show technically had an 18-song setlist, but he called a lot of audibles, leading the band on brief jams and dramatic finales with a wave of his hand or a jab of his guitar neck; Emmett’s roaring Hammond B-3 organ provided a beefy counterpart to White’s blasting power chords. He played a lot of slide guitar — always on a gorgeous old hollow-body — and the audience through several singalongs and talked often, although usually the only words most of us could understand were “Jersey!” and “Rock and roll!”
The show was curiously divided in half, as if there were two halves: He and the band took the stage at 9:30 and tore through most of the new album, dipping back into White Stripes terrain with deeper cuts like “Black Math,” “Suzy Lee” and “Catch Hell Blues.” After 45 minutes he and the band left the stage but quickly came back for what at first seemed like an encore: powerful versions of the Raconteurs’ “Broken Boy Soldier” and a long take of the stadium singalong “Seven Nation Army,” with him stopping the band to let the audience sing the song’s iconic riff. But then they kept going — White’s guitar tech (who was dressed more elaborately than anyone in the band) kept bringing him guitars and the classics kept coming: “I’m Slowly Turning Into You,” “Fell in Love With a Girl,” and finally “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground,” with a couple of new songs thrown in. Right at 11 p.m., as he led the band through another drawn-out jam, he waved his hands and said “That’s it!” and they tore through a drawn-out finale, and the sweaty crowd filed out onto Newark Avenue.
In classic contrarian fashion, White has basically said that the band isn’t really doing a tour but just playing shows, with union halls and similar small venues on the docket — there are a handful of U.S. and U.K. dates scheduled this fall, with hopefully more to come.
Traditional, straight-ahead, guitar-driven rock and roll has been in a sad place for the last couple of decades — it has little direct connection to the music that’s popular today, except for country, and in many ways the White Stripes seem like the last great rock band, or at least the last one to really move the culture into maybe-not-so-new but truly exciting places. But as “No Name” and Monday night’s concert show, if there’s one person to keep it alive and kicking, it’s Jack White.
Setlist (from setlist.fm)
Old Scratch Blues
That’s How I’m Feeling
Tom Cat (Muddy Waters cover)
It’s Rough on Rats (If You’re Asking)
Black Math
Archbishop Harold Holmes
Why Walk a Dog?
Bombing Out
Underground
Suzy Lee
Catch Hell Blues
Encore:
Broken Boy Soldier
Seven Nation Army
I’m Slowly Turning Into You
Freedom at 21
Fell in Love With a Girl
What’s the Rumpus?
Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground
MUSIC PREMIERES
Four years on from the ‘Actual Life’ series lifting him into the mainstream spotlight, Fred Again.. continues to feel unavoidable. The London producer and DJ born Fred Gibson has moved at a relentless pace, bouncing between sold out stadium dates in New York and surprise appearances at Sheffield’s 1,000 capacity Forge, while also making history as the first electronic artist to top the bill at Reading and Leeds in 2024.
Where the ‘Actual Life’ releases and his fourth album, 2024’s ‘Ten Days’, leaned into warmth and joy pulled from ordinary moments, Gibson has also sharpened his instinct for high impact club weapons rooted in garage, dubstep and jungle. That side of his output lives on ‘USB’, an “infinite album” first imagined in 2022 as a home for tracks that exist outside any fixed universe, including defining moments like ‘Rumble’ and ‘Jungle’.
‘USB002’, the second vinyl only chapter of the ‘USB’ project, brings together 16 recent tracks, many of which surfaced gradually on streaming services over a ten week stretch. The music was shaped live, in step with ten unannounced DJ appearances across the world from Dublin to Mexico City. Even with a Glastonbury style registration system in place, The Times reported that 100,000 people tried to secure tickets for the opening night in Glasgow.
Appropriately, ‘USB002’ feels alive and constantly in motion, helped along by contributions from close collaborators such as Floating Points and Sammy Virji. The rigid, techno driven pressure of ‘Ambery’ echoes elements of Floating Points’ 2019 album ‘Crush’, while Gibson’s take on ‘The Floor’ builds like the slow climb of a rollercoaster before dropping back to earth without warning.
The guest list stretches beyond the usual dance circles, with two Australian guitar bands popping up in unexpected ways. ‘You’re A Star’ reworks Amyl and The Sniffers’ ‘Big Dreams’ into a breakbeat driven rush, while ‘Hardstyle 2’ pulls the experimental post punk edge of Shady Nasty into an Underworld adjacent space alongside Kettama. Gibson’s real trick is his ability to connect with anyone. These tracks are not reinterpretations but full takeovers.
The visual world wrapped around the ‘USB002’ rollout reinforces the instinct behind the music. Phones were prohibited at shows staged in vast warehouse spaces under sweeping light rigs, while Gibson’s team shared striking black and white footage and created artwork for each single on site. Bottling that sense of urgency, the project is rooted in the thrill of the present moment, something Gibson seems able to summon simply by turning up.
If the ‘Actual Life’ series and ‘Ten Days’ captured passing snapshots of experience, ‘USB’ is defined by constant movement, a space where boundaries are removed entirely. Sitting somewhere between an album and a playlist, ‘USB002’ underlines why Fred Again.. feels so dominant right now, and suggests that his current run may only be the beginning of something much bigger.
