Jack White Closes Coachella Weekend 2, Day 2 With 'Last Electric Show for a While'
On the same night the latest class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was inducted in Cleveland, Jack White was in the Southern California desert staking his claim for future induction by delivering yet another stunning set at Coachella.
But this was a bit different than week one. In the middle of his show-closing rendition of the White Stripes’ anthem “Seven Nation Army,” White paused and noted, “This is the last electric show I’m going to play for a while,” eluding to his recent announcement that a five-state acoustic tour will close out his touring in support of his most recent album, Lazaretto.
Then, for the second time over his hour-and-45-minute set, White got a little religious, imploring the crowd like a preacher to chant repeatedly, “Music is sacred.” By that point of the night, few in the crowd had trouble swallowing what White was preaching. While AC/DC may have taken the crowd down the “Highway of Hell” the previous night with its solid-but-narrow rock vision, White showed he still has a whole lot of road to travel by constantly evolving and tweaking his sound.
Backed by his crack five-piece ensemble, White reconstructed songs by his previous bands, the White Stripes and the Raconteurs, and stretched out and jammed on others. He fired a warning shot early on. His set-opening cover of Elvis Presley’s “Power of My Love” ran into his own “High Ball Stepper” to produce a 10-minute jam. That was followed immediately by “Lazaretto,” punctuated by White’s rap-like phrasing, Daru Jones’s incredible gunshot drumming and Lillie Mae Rische’s white-hot fiddle break.
Frequently going acoustic – with an upright bass joining pedal-steel guitar, fiddle, piano, and on occasion mandolin – numbers like the White Stripes’ “We’re Going to be Friends” wouldn’t have sounded out of place at next week’s Stagecoach Festival, and that’s a testament to White’s diversity.
On the other side of the coin, when the most important figure in rock since Kurt Cobain rocked out, he hit nearly as hard as AC/DC. And, while he often stretched out numbers into epic jams, he wisely kept the song that first gained him mainstream airplay, the White Stripes’ “Fell in Love With a Girl,” a tight piece of garage rock perfection.
In part of his preacher rap at the center of “Seven Nation Army,” White implored the crowd to “treat your local punk band as well as you treat your blockbuster movie,” suggesting he hasn’t forgotten his earliest days on the Detroit music scene, although it seems like another musical lifetime considering the level he’s playing at now.
White wasn’t the only one to evoke the feel of a manic street preacher. Earlier in the day, St. Paul and the Broken Bones turned the Mojave tent into a revival meeting, with singer Paul Janeway testifying to the gods of funk and soul. The sharp-dressed sextet, however, welcomes all denominations, with the bearded and bespectacled bassist Jesse Phillips looking a bit like a Hasidic Jew.
“Coachella, it’s time to move your ass right now!,” Janeway instructed the crowd early in the set. A few songs later, the frontman – sporting glasses and golden shoes – made his way into the crowd. Not only did the band’s stirring soul revue touch the crowd, but so did Janeway’s words. “I came to Coachella in 2008 to see Prince,” he recalled. “So if you’ve got a band don’t quit. If some dumb redneck from Alabama can get here, anybody can.”
Another artist with religious overtones is one of music’s most promising new stars, but Hozier – performing on the main stage in the early evening – didn’t have nearly the impact of St. Paul. His earnest soul on songs like “Someone New” had the crowd swaying, although his promise to deliver “fun” really never came. Still, we thought we’d stick around to see if his mega-hit “Take Me to Church” would be a religious experience. While it did get the hordes of festival goers seated on the lawn back on their feet, we failed to see God.
At the nearby Outdoor Stage, Scotland’s Belle & Sebastian had no problem bringing the fun. We caught their set in progress just in time for “The Party Line,” a delicious slice of neo-disco from the band’s most recent album, Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance. Although the band couldn’t hold that spirit throughout the remainder of the set, they ended on a joyous note as singer Stuart Murdoch brought hordes of fans on stage to shake their groove things to the band’s 1988 indie hit “The Boy with the Arab Strap.”
Father John Misty brought his overly dramatic brand of folk-rock to the Outdoor Stage as a neon heart-shaped light flashed “no photographs.” Looking a bit like late period Jim Morrison without the weight gain, Misty – aka Josh Tillman – prowled the stage with a mic stand during his set-opener “I Love You, Honeybear,” the title track from his latest album. Later, armed with an acoustic guitar, he offer his musical tour of an L.A. landmark in “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings.”
Earlier in the day, we caught the tail end of Royal Blood’s set, which had singer/bassist Mike Kerr banging along on Ben Thatcher kit in a dramatic finale.
L.A. punk vets Bad Religion stormed the Main Stage with a set that was as hot as the desert heat, ending with a foursome of hard-charging alt-rock hits, including “21st Century Digital Boy,” “American Jesus” and “Sorrow,” proving when rock ‘n’ roll and religion get together sometimes it’s so bad, it’s good.
