The White Stripes Live at Dionysus September 16th, 2000

We left Cincinnati later than we should have. A visit to Shake-It Records looms large in my memory and we definitely rolled straight to the club, Dionysus. On the campus of Oberlin College and apparently run by the students there, what could be an easy target to shit on is actually pretty damn cool. I mean, hell, the college I was enrolled in that semester wasn't booking Sleater-Kinney. 

The show itself still sticks out as one of the most transformative the White Stripes EVER played. Like if there was ever so clearly a "before" and "after" moment in the history of the White Stripes live shows, I'd push the pin firmly into the date September 16th, 2000.

I don't recall the crowds the previous two nights (Chicago and Newport, KY) necessarily "getting" the Stripes. Sure, the performances were solid, folks may have even picked up on it a little, but they were big rooms, law of averages probably explains it. But at Dionysus, man, it's a small room, maybe 400 capacity, and with a low stage, the space felt like a basement...hot and sweaty, probably not being utilized for its intended use and primarily populated with kids who've got NOTHING better to do. Receptors open, transmissions receiving...just give 'em something worthwhile and the response will be wild.

Watching from the merch table at the back of the room, you could feel the band take off. The show starts off interestingly enough (can't ever recall "Your Southern Can Is Mine" appearing so early in a set) and from around "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" onward, its as if afterburners are on full throttle, every move just of-the-moment and powerful and important and happening right in front of your face. 

After futzing around for months, the fuzz feedback mainline of "Dead Leaves" is finally firmly established in the way all would come to know and love it. "Death Letter" is the raucous rail-splitter while the placid verses of "Stop Breaking Down" achieve the song a tempered duality as leveraged by the absolute savage slide of the choruses, while the uncharacteristic off mic screaming in "One More Cup of Coffee" has you realize that mind-bending covers of Son House, Robert Johnson and Bob Dylan poured out one after the other in rapid succession, a most holy trinity of White Stripes heroes if there ever was one.

From "Astro" forward...there's so evidently a transcendent musical connection between the two entities on stage, of the same brain, taking action without thought, a Darwinian evolution that should crawl across millennia transpiring in matter of mere minutes. On a Saturday night. In Ohio.

Listening back now, nearly 20 years later, it STILL gives me goosebumps. The way "Jack the Ripper" (a song they'd goofed on a handful of times previously) melts into "Farmer John" (a song they'd NEVER previously goofed on) and straight into, hands-down, the best version of "St. James Infirmary" the band would ever perform and arguably epicenter of the aforementioned "before" and "after" designations.

To lay ears to the recording now is to hear "St. James" evolving in real time as an arrangement heretofore unknown, just exploratory explosive accents primally bashing away as entree to the song, unrecognizable from its released version, pummeling inauspiciously into the first verse, Jack's voice rich, full, expressive, like a vase holding ten thousand orchids hand-painted by O'Keeffe.  Then completely out of left-field, Jack offers the second verse double time, damn near jazzy or show tune(ful), humbly paying respect to the roots of this Cab Calloway composition. In my recollection of the evening, I feel like I was holding my breath at this moment. As if to ask, timidly, scared, fearful of failure or catastrophic collapse "can they do it?" And wildly, with abandon, Meg is RIGHT there with him, never missing a beat for the next TWO verses. Weeks, days, shit a half HOUR early this would have been impossible. The chops were not there, the telekinetic o-mind wavelength was, previously, nonexistent. And without ever telegraphing the move, out of nowhere, Jack calls verse four back to the explosive accents, half-time, reigning it in with a delightful smirk, at this point completely showing off how shit hot he and Meg are. Just making it up as they go at this point, verse five crosses back to double time, the intensity somehow amplified, improbably kicked up a few notches and culminating into one solitary, strong expositional statement, like a goddamned full-body statue of Teddy Roosevelt, arm outstretched, pointing, confidently, ready to decimate whatever gets in the way. And that, you little maniacs, is when the White Stripes first hit that apex, as if levitating, where they could do no wrong. Exquisite beauty. The reason we are all here today.

A few songs later and unexpectedly, Jack just starts making shit up off the top of his head. We've labeled it "Just Keep On Walking (improv)" here and that, again, you lucky freaks, is the first time the White Stripes ever just made something up in front of a crowd. Said approach would be responsible for some of my personal favorite moments from the band (including "Little Cream Soda" even though I wasn't even there to witness it in person) and straight into "Screwdriver." Jack teases, if only for a moment, the drawn out and confrontational manner of both the MC5's "I Just Don't Know" and the Gories "48 Hours" and yet somehow builds upon it. Goes further. Creates distance. Catches nirvana. 

Leaving the stage after said culmination, you can hear the crowd just losing it. Apeshit. The opening act, who almost certainly no one there even knew of prior to this evening. EVERYONE was urging them to return for an encore, including the members of Sleater-Kinney, who were all but pushing Jack and Meg back onstage. Really, truly, this never happens, it should never happen, yet witnesses to history and this tape prove, "Let's Build a Home" just smokes before the tape runs out in a brief moment of Basinski-esque disintegration.

I'm a bastard when it comes to hyperbole...I HATE when people blow shit out of proportion. I don't have time for it. But I honestly do not think the White Stripes ever played a more perfect show. Yeah Manaus '05 was bonkers, Tasmania '06 is electrifying, Mississippi '07 brings tears, Detroit Institute of Arts, Peel sessions...there's no shortage of GREAT shows with this band. But ones where everything clicks. Where the band is almost a visage in hyper-speed while their surroundings are but props calcified in amber, where it feels like the incalculable number of nerve endings of every last synapse of every living being in the world were all connected onstage that night...well, damn, Oberlin it is. Because while those other shows may carry more emotion, may explore further depths of the catalog, or engaged multiples of more fans...September 16th, 2000 was the catalyst that enabled all of them to ever happen.

So for that, I'm grateful.

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Addendum - OR - Shit That Didn't Make Sense Publishing Anywhere Else But This Blog

- The previous night in Cincinnati we stayed with Patrick Keeler of the Greenhornes. One of the factors that caused us to have to drive straight to Dionysus was that Patrick was printing out a custom illustrated cover of Jack Lawrence to accompany the CD-r of the (at the time yet-to-be-released) Greenhornes self-titled album he had given to Jack White. Seriously, the color printout was taking FOREVER. Easily twenty minutes. And after it had completed, Meg was all "Well, I want one too." And we just couldn't wait, we had to say "next time" or something like that. I don't think she ever got her custom cover. There were cool as hell, Saturday morning cartoon-esque illustrations of all the Greenhornes as I remember but I don't think they ended up ever being used anywhere. Would love to see them again someday.

- At Shake-It I got a copy of the Queens of the Stone Age "The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret" 7-inch

- First band onstage this evening was C.O.C.O.

- Smoking was "suggested" prohibited at all of the shows on this tour because Corin of Sleater-Kinney was pregnant (though it was messaged in a way so as not to divulge the reasoning)

- An autographed pizza (or half pizza? a slice?) was sold at the merch table this evening

- Sleater-Kinney opened their set with a version of "Fortunate Son." I have a stone vivid memory of seeing a European-style CD single of S-K's "You're No Rock and Roll Fun" with "Fortunate Son" as the bonus track, at some record store over the river in Windsor, probably no more than a year after this gig. I didn't buy it and for YEARS I searched for another copy. Only since the robustness of Discogs has really become self-evident (the past four years?) have I realized that this CD legitimately does not exist. I have no idea what I actually saw in that Canadian record store and I think about it FAR too often.

- After the gig a gaggle of us made our way to a campus house party and were explicitly NOT let in. The whole "who invited you?" kinda attitude. Really, in all my years van touring with the Stripes, I don't recall ever even ATTEMPTING to go to a party after a gig. It was just...never on the agenda. So really, to me, it didn't seem like that big of a deal to not be allowed in. But Carrie of S-K thought it so hilarious that she actually told the story in her autobiography AND as part of an animated short film.

- After not getting into the party, we made way back to S-K's hotel, where Janet let me, Jack, and Meg crash in with her in her room. We watched "My Bodyguard" on tv. On tour with Pavement the year before they had given us their "day rooms" and I thought THAT was pretty generous, but Janet foregoing her once-every-three-nights solo room and even sharing a bed with Meg so that we could rest in relative comfort was such a selfless gesture that I am still amazed by it today. Tried to pass that same generosity on any time the Dirtbombs were lucky enough to be in hotels and an opening band on tour. If ever a rock and roll road tradition to further promulgate, my vote goes to this one.

- Next night was at Little Brother's in Columbus, another really good show. Sleater-Kinney did an unreleased song that night that they were just calling "Wipers" which, to me, sounded like "Don't Fear the Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult. Don't think that song ever turned into anything. Maybe a year or two later I remember seeing some tape trading page where someone claimed to have a recording of the Stripes. All I can remember is that their online handle was something along the lines of "Veganxterrorist" I've never been able to confirm they actually recorded the show, I have never found a copy of even been aware of anyone else who has ever heard it. These are the kinds of odd brain wrinkles that still keep me up at night and I'm afraid that I will die without ever getting a definitive answer on. Such is life.

Final Thoughts on the White Stripes' Final Show

“I can’t even tell you how much it means for me to be here tonight…so I’m not even gonna bother”
-Jack White, July 31st, 2007

Not long after I walked offstage as the hired-gun drummer for opening act Dan Sartain, an assortment of crew and musicians and friends gathered together and took part in a celebratory, raise-the-glass toast, all led by Jack White to mark the end of the run of nine shows in the previous ten days.

As the crowd thinned, Meg White and I were the last ones left standing there. Apropos of nothing, cups in hand, not even in a conversation at that point, Meg said to me, “I think this is the last White Stripes show.” Confused, I responded “Well, yeah, last show of this leg of the tour.” She replied “No…I think this is the last White Stripes show ever” and slowly walked away.

I was dumbfounded. I had no idea what she was talking about. I had no idea what she meant. I had no idea what to do. I looked around to see if anyone else heard what Meg had said, but I was all alone.
Within minutes, the band was onstage.

What would YOU do if half of your favorite band told you (and ONLY you) it would be their last show immediately prior to taking the stage?

Shocked and having no better ideas, I went and grabbed two pieces of paper. One of them a perfunctory, public-facing schedule posted backstage. The other, more-detailed, sharing much of the same info and privately posted inside the band’s tour bus.

Just typing that makes me self-consciously feel like an ass...more preoccupied with the artifact and ephemera than focusing on the actual feeling of (and living in) the moment. Also, I should’ve at least made the effort to grab a damn camera.

I decamped to my usual side-stage perch and dutifully hand-wrote the scattershot songs that spilled out of Jack and Meg that evening. The White Stripes had never played Mississippi prior to this performance and it's clear the deep musical heritage of the state loomed large in Jack’s mind as he attacked the performance setlist-free.

“Stop Breaking Down” was an unexpected opening song. Despite being released in 1999, it had only opened a set once before, just three weeks earlier. The inspiration behind that first opening performance was the band headlining the Ottawa Bluesfest, being met with newspaper headlines that asked “Are the White Stripes bluesy enough to headline Bluesfest?” Seems as Jack’s intention of starting both these shows with the Robert Johnson classic was to leave no doubt to a skeptical homegrown audience of armchair connoisseurs or a lazy Canadian newspaper editor that the band was well-within their powers conveying the blues to the masses. All that was only further buoyed by Jack later throwing in an unexpected tease of another Robert Johnson song “Phonograph Blues” to assuredly placate the ghosts of the Mississippi Delta.

Inspired, one-of-a-kind takes on both “As Ugly As I Seem” and “Astro” now jump out to me as beautiful…each song's last hurrah from the band that birthed them. Exploratory adventures the both of them, proving that no piece was ever finished or finalized or etched into stone. Rather, they were all living, creative works, changing and adapting over the years and begging to be recorded and shared and analyzed by all of you reading this right now.

Jack began the encore by himself, pouring every last drop of feeling and emotive vocal quiver into a solo offering of “300 MPH Torrential Outpour Blues” that was achingly bare. The raw force behind it feels beyond naked...as if Jack had pulled back his own skin to reveal his truest, innermost thoughts, particularly when he changed the lyrics on the fly and sang...

"See there’s three women in my mind that know they have the answer, but they’re not letting go…
What else is new? I’m the only one that seems to care where I should go”

After re-listening to this show for the first time in ages, I feel like only now have I fully absorbed the enormity of that line. Frankly, it just hit me like a freight train to the chest. I was caught entirely off-guard. I couldn’t help but be moved to tears.

Moments like that make me feel this show is the audio manifestation of opposing, equally-powered forces clawing for control of my brain in an id-versus-ego battle of monumental proportions. On one end I’m mourning, absolutely fucking hurt that this huge presence in my life, my occasional reason for being, my family both by blood and by choice…just ceased to be. And yet at the other end, I am so goddamned lucky that the White Stripes ever existed at all...that people even paid attention, that the band was able to make a lucrative career out of their passion, out of art and that I had a side-stage seat to the entirety of their existence.

These are feelings that have never reconciled themselves. I doubt they ever will.

After the completion of a bombastic, career-defining version of “Death Letter”, Jack poignantly says “Son House, thank you for finally letting me come home.” House was a passive participant in this matter, having died in the band’s hometown of Detroit in 1988. But Jack’s comment has seemingly little to do with any physical structure...what he is saying is that Son House (and to a larger extent, blues music in general) provided both he and Meg with an avenue to pursue their artistic vision. In this sense, home is not spoken in the predominant, noun usage of the word to describe where one lives, but rather in a more colloquial, adverbial sense meaning ‘deep, to the heart.’

In short, the blues is home. The blues provides comfort, the blues provides center, the blues provides foundation. It provides a manner to express one’s feelings, both a connection to the past and a path through the future.

Ending the set with Leadbelly’s “Boll Weevil” and the singalong chorus repeating “he’s looking for a home” only further drives this point, well...home. The White Stripes were only able to become THE WHITE STRIPES because of the blues. Able to find their voices, to spread the word in a way that was seeming antithetical to two white kids born in Detroit in the 1970’s. Blues was the language, not chosen, but seemingly divined, to best communicate themselves, to express, to converse, to paint this masterpiece.

In that same way...we are all always looking for a home. For where we belong. Where we can be ourselves. Where we are free to do what we need to do. For a way to be. For a conduit to something bigger.

Upon the completion of the set, with a backdrop of Who-like synth arpeggiations singing out into the night, Jack sincerely says the following...

“I can’t believe how long it has taken us to get here. Thanks for waiting. Thanks for coming. Thanks for buying our records. Thanks for buying a ticket. We love you very much. Thank you. God bless you Son House. God bless you Robert Johnson. Thank you so much.”

I can think of no better epilogue for Jack to punctuate the White Stripes last-ever live performance. Each thought a simple sentence that, upon closer inspection, opens up to a wider meaning...not just spoken to these folks in suburban Memphis on a Tuesday night. Rather, they speak to all their fans across the world. About the journey. About patience. About action. About appreciation. About presence. About gratitude. And ultimately, about the blues. Which is, arguably, all it was ever about.

In the intervening twelve years I’ve had countless conversations with Meg White. And I have never once, not for a moment, even considered asking her what was going through her head that night in Mississippi. To me, she has found her home and that is all that matters.