Every Waking Moment

Jack White @ Roseland Ballroom 5/21/2012

Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground / Missing Pieces / Sixteen Saltines / Hypocritical Kiss / I Cut Like A Buffalo / Trash Tongue Talker / Top Yourself / Two Against One / Black Math / Hello Operator / Weep Themselves to Sleep / You Know That I Know / Blunderbuss / Ball and Biscuit // Freedom at 21 / Steady, As She Goes / Take Me With You When You Go / Catch Hell Blues / Seven Nation Army

Jack White played this show with his all-male band, a group of musicians so formidably talented that it seemed that he was doing his best to keep up with them. The band, anchored by the loose-limbed drummer Daru Jones, were exceptionally loose but impeccably professional – everyone on stage clearly trusted each other, and played each song moment to moment, investing every performance with urgency and inspiration. It was great to see White genuinely challenged by the other players, and willing to give Jones – a far more dynamic and physical musician – a lot of the spotlight. It reminded me a bit of when Stephen Malkmus started playing with the Jicks – both men had spent so much time playing with friends who were not at all on their talent level that it was a relief to see them step up to working with equals, or in some cases, superiors.

Jack White “Blunderbuss”

Blunderbuss is the richest, most consistently excellent album of White’s career. The title track, a gentle, ornate country pop ballad, is one of the record’s most subtle numbers, which led me to overlook it somewhat in the first month or two that I had the album. There are flashier numbers, for sure, but “Blunderbuss” has a melody that burrows deep into my mind, and lyrics about longing for a relationship that exists fully in emotional sense but can go no further that stirs up bad memories for me. But as much as it stings, there’s a lot of grace in White’s frustration, and he articulates it all with remarkable clarity: “Such a trick, pretending not to be doing what you want to / but seems that everybody does this every waking moment.”

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