Jack White Brings the <i>Boarding House Reach</i> Experiment Home to the ’Stone

Jack White is among the world’s elite when it comes to making an arena concert feel intimate and unique. And the Detroit-born Nashvillian, former White Stripe, sometime Raconteur and full-time Third Man Records impresario's Bridgestone Arena appearance on Nov. 20 definitely lived up to that reputation. The show closed out the world tour in support of White’s third solo LP Boarding House Reach, and rewarded the patience of fans who’ve been waiting for a follow-up to his 2015 Bridgestone show with Loretta Lynn and William Tyler.

White’s first local appearance since that date was a trio of surprise release shows in the small-club-size Blue Room at Third Man’s headquarters back in the spring, and it was to be followed by a headlining set at September’s Pilgrimage Festival in Franklin. The weather handed everyone involved a big-ass bag of lemons: The whole festival was rained out just a few hours in, well before White could make it to the stage. He made lemonade out of the situation, enlisting Music City mainstays and Third Man artists Margo Price and Joshua Hedley for a triple-bill makeup show at the neighborhood Enormodome. The gig marked the end of a challenging year for TMR with a display of top-tier local talent that the label has invested in and signal-boosted.

Jack White Brings the <i>Boarding House Reach</i> Experiment Home to the ’Stone — Joshua Hedley
Photo: Britton Strickland

Hedley, a many-year veteran of the honky-tonks that line Lower Broadway just outside the arena, kept his opening set brief. He was decked out in a sharp suit (albeit far less flamboyant than the rhinestone-studded Western outfit he’s worn sometimes this year), and he and his band of aces The Hedliners serenaded the early birds with Nashville Sound-inspired originals from his sterling debut LP Mr. Jukebox. The title is a reference to Hedley’s encyclopedic repertoire of standards, and the title track — equally suitable for dancing or crying in your beer — closed the set.

It’s been a year full of milestones for Price, the East Side rock-scene-stalwart-turned-country-champ, as she’s toured behind her second LP All American Made. We’ve seen her with husband and collaborator Jeremy Ivey and their sure-handed band in a variety of settings this year: We caught part of her three-night homecoming bash at the Ryman in May, her set at Louisville's Forecastle Festival in July, and another performance atop the Third Man building during AmericanaFest in September. (Even though she didn't take home any of the three Americana Honors and Awards she was nominated for, you could easily argue Price won the festival with that show.)

Each of those sets ripped, and the Bridgestone show was no exception. Highlights included a newer tune called “Leftovers,” a heartfelt, stripped-down take on All American Made ’s title cut, and a longform, Dead-worthy dual-drum jam on “Four Years of Chances” from her debut Midwest Farmer’s Daughter. There’s another milestone to watch for in 2019: Price announced midset that she and Ivey are expecting a baby in May and will be taking some hard-earned time off the road as she writes and records her next LP.

As has been the case for the majority of White’s 2018 tour stops, fans were instructed to lock their phones in form-fitting pouches at the door, and when we first got to our seats, we joked about whether the darkness in the room was due to a lack of phones or a lack of people. In truth, it was probably a little of both, but by the time White and his band took the stage, the place had filled up considerably.

Lit in brilliant blue hues, White spent much of the two-hour-plus performance bounding around the stage like an excitable toddler or overeager kitten. Occasionally he took a tumble on his journeys from the microphone to various spots onstage where he’d vibe out with his bandmates — bassist Dominic Davis, drummer Carla Azar and keyboardists Quincy McCrary and Neal Evans — and he called out the set list on the fly, as is de rigeur for his shows.

To say a Jack White concert isn't entertaining is patently false. But it’s also wrong to say it's effortless. Some of the creative gambles on Boarding House Reach didn't pay off, affirmed in part by a sense of hastiness to the half-dozen or so songs off the album in the set. For a large portion of the show, White and the band seemed hellbent on reassuring the audience that they can rock incredibly hard — even though everyone in the room was already a fan. Like the last time we saw him, there were weird riffs in his banter that didn’t quite land. This time, it was a recurring bit on how everybody in Nashville is going to have a condo by the year 2035.

Our favorite moment of the night was its most tender: a rendition of the White Stripes' adorable “We're Going to Be Friends,” which sounded like a music box with synths instead of guitar, and featured a spirited call-and-response with the crowd. Close to half of the set consisted of White Stripes songs, with highlights including the jaunty “Hotel Yorba” spliced with “Heartbreak Hotel,” the unbeatable “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” and the arena-rock anthem “Seven Nation Army,” which closed the show, natch.

In the future, fans may not look back on the Boarding House Reach period as the most effective incarnation of White. But if trying something new resulted in an unqualified win every single time, would we keep coming back to watch?