Jack White "Live at Detroit Masonic Temple"

(Third Man, 2021) I joined the Third Man Vault record club because I wanted to get the Johnny Cash record last year, and even though it is slightly out of my budget, I kept paying club dues because I really feel like Third Man is a label to which I want to pledge some loyalty. I love the store; I love their design sense; I really love that they have an imprint for oddball spoken word/novelty/comedy strangeness 45s; I feel connected to both Detroit and Nashville; and I really appreciate the historical bent of the label. That said, while I am not a hater and harbor no negative feelings, I am not a Jack White superfan. I really liked White Stripes but they did not mean as much to me as the Demolition Dollrods or a lot of other acts in the scene at the time, and I've seen and heard Raconteurs and Dead Weather but just never got super into them. I have only positive things to say about White's music and performances, but I'm just not a zealot and don't have most of his albums. But I have a big one now. First of all, it would be hard to say this particular package was not worth my $65 dues. It is a quadruple live LP in a hard slipcase with great individual sleeves, plus a bonus 45 of White's recent SNL performance where he paid tribute to Van Halen, Beyonce, Jesus and other equally lofty icons. Maybe my speakers suck, but the recording of this hours-long concert seemed like even with a (relative to Jack+Meg) full band it was kind of spare, and his vox was kinda high in the mix, which worked for me, even if it didn't rock and swing like most of the multi-hour concert icons I admire (P-Funk, the Boss, Dead Moon). The concert felt really monumental, and White seemed thrilled to be back home in a venue he revered, at one point urging the keyboardist to raise their game ("Stevie Wonder played here!") and later musing about his mom being a candy-selling usher there. The playlist of all of his bands' songs and crazy covers (Hank, Sr, Junior Wells, Zep, Beck) make this a fun listen even for someone not super familiar with the catalogue. I now realize that most of the records in this club will be Jack White records, as the Loretta and Johnny and Willie ones are pretty sporadic. But fuck it, they can have my $65 a quarter, and with packages like this, maybe they will convert me yet.