Jack White
Masonic Temple
April 12, 2025
There’s a lot of fanfare when Jack White returns home to Detroit.
In return, Jack often offers an element of surprise for the hometown crowd, like bringing his 93-year-old mother onstage during his last stop here or getting married on stage three years ago during his other last stop here.
This latest two-night stand at the Masonic Temple had less drama, but it was truly one of his finest performances. After a world tour of arenas, Jack and his team decided to downsize for this run of dates supporting his 2024 album “No Name” (which I had the pleasure of world premiering on my radio show for Detroit’s 101.9 WDET-FM).
That meant touring venues that hold maybe a few hundred people and announcing the shows barely a day before, then announcing a more proper theater-sized tour covering the entire world after that. There’s a decidedly punk rock attitude to all of it, like not even writing down a set list before the show and just going with the flow.
That flow ends up being a non-stop blitz of music for about an hour and a half most nights (the hometown crowd getting close to two hours – thanks Jack!).
Seeing this spectacle in Jack’s hometown was special for a reason, even if it was without a ton of surprises (although the bounty of songs from the White Stripes catalog was definitely refreshing alongside the new material).
People debate me on this when I say it … but there’s no doubt to me that Jack White is the biggest rock star in the world. I mean, like, true rock star.
The guitar tone is undeniable. The stage presence is bar none (made my date wonder if he had a former life as a dancer, moving around the stage with a sense of rhythm most 49-year-old white dudes simply don’t have). The guitar riffs are monstrous and catchy. I don’t think Jack has a choice anymore but to close out the evening with “Seven Nation Army” at the Masonic, where the White Stripes worked it out for the first time on the Masonic stage back in 2003; now, it’s a global hit belted out at nearly every sporting event in the world.
He was clearly having a blast. The random wails he’d unleash into the microphone… the demand of the crowd to clap or get into it more as he went… It was refreshing to see in an era of pin-point accuracy performances on even bigger stages.
It was lovely to see the major hits sound like major hits, as well as hear some deeper cuts like “The Union Forever” (performed for the first time on this tour since 2014) mixed in.
Maybe it wasn’t the biggest set of surprises during this hometown run, but Jack White nonetheless delivered on every decibel.
