It's been an exploratory couple of decades for Jack White. Once known as a retro rock minimalist, he has gone from weirdo marimba jams to surprisingly maximalist Americana to dalliances with synths and rapping, along the way starting several new bands. But with his latest solo incarnation, he's gone all the way back to basics — and he's never been better.
White's No Name era is his purest, least conceptual phase ever — even more so than the White Stripes. He's done away with surprises and even mostly abandoned a colour scheme, just focusing on kicking up a racket with straight-for-the-gut garage punk. And his latest Toronto appearance, an underplay at a jam-packed History, showed that this might be his best era; the perfect distillation of everything that sets him apart. He's even stopped banning phones from his shows, which is probably the right call, even if it meant I watched parts of the night through the screen of the guy filming right in front of me.
Following an appropriately ferocious opening set from local punks Bad Waitress, White took the stage with three backing players (his Raconteurs bandmate Patrick Keeler on drums, plus a bassist and an electric organist), arriving with the energy of a caged lion, pacing anxiously while slashing away at a single chord and managing to accidentally unplug his guitar from his pedal board twice in the same minute. Within seconds, he whipped up the crowd with soccer chants of "Eyy! Eyy! Eyy!"
He opened with a series of scorchers from last year's outstanding No Name, adding shrieking solos to "Old Scratch Blues" and the alternative radio hit "That's How I'm Feeling." Now seems as good a time as any to acknowledge that I underrated No Name in my original review of it, since the song's back-to-basics garage rock has since taken root in my lizard brain, its stripped-down sizzlers standing out as his best work in 20 years.
But if those songs weren't already ruthless enough, White closed the swaggering blues rocker "It's Rough on Rats (If You're Asking)" with a seething rant aimed at "the biggest rat of all, Donald Trump. That big fucking orange fucking rat, sitting on top of his stupid fucking desk. Sitting on top of his gold fucking desk with his foot soldier Elon Musk, and his foot soldier Steve Bannon, and his foot soldier Stephen Miller, and all the rest of those fucking fascists."
I'm not normally a fan of repetitive insults about Trump's ridiculous orange tan, but with distortion ringing out and fans hollering their approval, White's vicious anger was cathartic for anyone who has been staring at the news cycle with growing horror. There's nothing subtle or clever about Trump, so it was satisfying to hear him being savagely insulted with the venom he deserves.
"Don't forget y'all, my family goes back to Nova Scotia in this country, and I'll take Nova Scotia over that fake fucking version of America," White declared before tearing into the bluesy White Stripes deep cuts "Little Bird" and "Let's Build a Home," the staunch minimalism of those songs' original duo versions fleshed out by the full band.
Part if the fun of each of White's new solo eras is hearing how he updates his back catalogue for the latest version of his band, and this night was no exception. "Black Math" and "Fell in Love with a Girl" were amped up with stop-start dynamics, the latter having a slowed-down passage that slightly resembled the swagger of Joss Stone's aughts cover; "Corporation" from 2018's Boarding House Reach was simplified into a more garage rocking form; the acoustic "Love Interruption" had a little extra grit, and the guy standing next to me leaned over to ask if it was a Tragically Hip song.
White plays without a setlist, instead choosing songs as he goes, and he could be seen directing his band about what was to come next, or simply starting a riff and waiting until they locked in with him. During the encore, a roadie brought out the beat-up hollow-bodied guitar that he uses for slide guitar, and I saw the guy in front of me nudge his friend in anticipation of "Seven Nation Army" — except he used the guitar for the No Name track "Underground," then swapping out the guitar for one of his custom Fender Triplecasters for a closing "Steady, as She Goes," drawing out the finale with a call-and-response singalong.
Walking out of the venue after the 90-minute show, a car was driving away with "Seven Nation Army" blasting out of its open windows. Even if a few people were disappointed to not hear White's big hit, there was no question that the musician, now 49 years old, has never been better. Plus, anyone who wants to chant along with "Seven Nation Army" will have another chance during his next two nights at Massey Hall.