I don't like hippies and I like hipsters even less. My least favorite part of all the Grateful Dead shows, and Phish shows and all the Dave Mathews shows I've been too has always been the dirty, smelly hippies. It's not their hemp clothing or veggie burritos that bother me. It's the smell. They just don't get the time to bathe when they're on the road, dedicating their lives to catching the next show in the next city.
I hate hipsters. They're a different animal. Hipsters are supposed to be pioneers of culture. Shunning conformity for individualism. The sad irony is that being cool is their only desire. If a place is the cool place, then they have to be there, if a hat is the cool hat, then they have to wear it. If a band is the cool band, then they have to love them.
Jack White is the coolest dude on the planet. Everything he does is cool. From his style to his music, to his graphical design choices for his Third Man Records. He has the best selling Vinyl album on the charts. Vinyl is climbing the hipster charts with a bullet. But there is a problem with being cool. As soon as everyone thinks your cool, some people won't think you're so cool anymore. 100% saturation on the cool charts is the beginning of the end.
So my excitement and exuberance was mixed with a pinch of trepidation as his current tour is in support of his 2nd solo album Lazaretto (which is an isolation hospital for people with leprosy). I suspected his coolness had peaked. And there was no doubt the show would be crawling with hipsters.
The lines were shockingly long. The hipsters abundant. The fedoras ubiquitous. Black frame glasses.... well those are timeless. My anxiety grew. And then Jack White took the stage. The first thing I noticed was the energy. It was quickly evident that this was a rock and roll show. Like a REAL rock and roll show. The MC had told us that cell phone cameras were not allowed. The justification being that it's better to be in the moment than to be documenting being in the moment. It was hard to look away. White moved, and bounced, and jumped and pumped his guitar like a rock star should. He paced his set list perfectly. The crowd took a breath when White allowed us too. Then took our breath away with his next choice from his entire catalog. The bass drum thumped and was the engine that drove the train foreword. But it wasn't just that. Jack White has tapped into the vein of music that fed Blind Willie McTell, Johnny Cash and Jimmy Page. His abiding love for blues guitar is evident even under a mountain of distortion and effects pedals.
Sipping on a bottle of champagne that he set on the drum riser, White told the crowd that someone backstage had told him to save some energy for his 2 night stint in his hometown Detroit. He told to the crowd, that wasn't him. He was going to give it all he had TONIGHT! As White and the band were ripping into a 5 song encore filled with improvisational blues and mind thumping energy, I found myself jumping and shouting right along with every damn hipster in there. He had lived up to the hype. He was worth the price. He was still cool. And my ears are still ringing for it.
