The White Stripes Live at the Ritz, Raleigh, NC 9-26-99

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Direct quote from the tour diary "The 'Ritz' is anything but, although it holds about 2400 people + gave us a $10 buyout. The backstage was spacious + clean + for some reason Jack was fascinated w/ the ceiling tiles...Stripes made $70+ in merch and the show was more tempo consistent but there were some more mistakes than last night." 

Apparently we lied to the front desk of the Comfort Inn on this evening and said that only two people would be staying in the room that night. It was actually four of us in there. The next day we went to five different places in town looking for an A/C adapter (I think for Jack's Whammy pedal) and in the process drove the rented green minivan 20 miles the wrong way. Jack's post-song banter regarding "Wasting My Time" and his dedication of "The Big Three Killed My Baby" to Preston Tucker are both innocently charming here.  The impromptu cover of Earl King's "Trick Bag" via the Gories version of the same song is full of swagger and would be one of only two times the Stripes were captured doing the song. I dig it.

This combination of songs, the manner in which they're played, the overall vibe of the whole thing...it is all entirely unique to the three shows that the White Stripes played opening for Pavement in September 1999. The Stripes never really held this vibe previously and would never land on it again. I guess it's a matter of opinion whether or not that's a good thing or a bad thing.  The fact it was their first-ever time playing three shows in three days feels significant and as the first bout of anything that could even in the loosest sense of the term be called a "tour" should make us all glad that there would be more of such endeavors. I guess there's probably an alternate reality where these gigs are pure disasters and it scares off Jack and Meg from putting themselves out there, maybe they don't hop in the van a year later when Sleater-Kinney asks 'em to open. The entirety of the White Stripes career is a collection of fortunate opportunities leading to even more fortunate and opportune possibilities. In the end, optimism and positivity tends to win out.

I was seventeen years old at the time of this show. Looking back over twenty years later my inclusion in the reindeer games seems and feels kind of unnecessary, yet I am insanely grateful I was there. Most importantly, I convinced the sound guy to record the show on a cassette and now we can all enjoy and dissect what went down in that half-empty room so many moons ago.