JACK WHITE IS A BLAZE OF ROCK AND ROLL DELIRIUM AT LONDON’S EVENTIM APOLLO

LIVE REVIEW | JACK WHITE w/ Anna Calvi | EVENTIM APOLLO, LONDON | 26th August 2026 by Morris Shamah

“Did someone tell you to be quiet?” yells Jack White, prowling across the stage and dragging his signature black telecaster by the neck, by way of introduction. The crowd responds as they should, ten times louder than before, and, finally satiated, White joins in on his band’s traditional set-starting improvisation, their ‘Intro Jam’. It’s a fierce appetizer, over too soon, but leads directly into the first of many The White Stripes songs, the equally fierce ‘Black Math’.

Jack White stormed back into London this week with a pair of shows at the legendary Eventim Apollo. White previously played the Apollo in 2022, with a couple of shows on his Supply Chain Issues tour. Since then, he has released two back-to-basics albums in 2023’s surprise release No Name and the most recent Frozen Charlotte, and his live show has been revitalised with a string of late-notice pop up shows, a new and unrelenting no-phones policy, and a £20 tickets for students scheme. In a world of AI, content-is-king, viral materialistic sensationalism, Jack White and his band of misfits are here to kick the doom-scrolling out of your eyeballs with nothing less than a fever dream of raw, unfiltered, shoot-first-and-never-ask-questions rock and fucking roll. Night 1 gave us a tribute to the late, great Dolly Parton with his first performance of ‘Jolene’ since 2007 with The White Stripes and an extended, sprawling 25 song set list. Night two follows with large shoes to fill.

To start things off, there’s the pre-party at Third Man Records in soho. Free detroit-style pizza and £3.33 beers were on offer for ticket holders, alongside limited edition show posters and t-shirts as well as all of the great Third Man Records goodies the store has to offer. This pop-up, which ran from 5pm to 6pm, drew an impressive (and intimidating) queue for such a tiny shop, and based on the empty bottles of Yellow Grass helles lager on the empty tables outside come 6:15pm, was a resounding success. Entering Eventim Apollo was surprisingly simple considering all patrons needed to put their phones in Yondr pouches. Queues were well staffed and moved quickly, the whole process not taking much longer than an extra minute or two.

Kicking off the show itself was Anna Calvi, English guitarist who recently came on stage with Wolf Alice at Green Man Festival just last week. Calvi’s set was Nashville-twang meets melodic metal virtuosity. Her telecaster roared and sang, a weapon of noise chaos, but never out of control. Her set was thoroughly spooky, a sinister soundscape, balanced by her ethereal and commanding vocals.

By 9:00pm (at least according to the clock on my Kindle) the Apollo was completely full, the floor heaving and the balcony totally seated, when the lights went dark for the main set. There was not a phone screen in sight, and everyone was entirely in the thrall of man on stage screaming, shouting and throwing piercing six-string noise at us.

Jack White’s show is a thunderstorm. For most of the main set and encore, it’s full throttle, no-prisoners garage-rock mayhem. White’s stark stage set-up gives him nearly two thirds of the stage to occupy, and he does, swirling and sliding across the vast space, possesed. Newer songs like ‘Dollar Bill’ and ‘Neighbors Blues’ off of Frozen Charlotte and ‘Archbishop Harold Holmes’ from No Name are expansive, dynamic blues-driven journeys of dark and light, a balance of explosive guitar and organ solos against a bed of quiter, breath-catching moments. Deeper cuts such as 2022’s ‘All Along The Way‘ and ‘All Your Love (I Miss Loving)‘, an Otis Rush cover recently added to the Jack White catalogue, mostly go over the audience’s head, but the ten – count em, if you have a notebook and pen – The White Stripes covers continuously grab the audience right back in.

‘Carolina Drama‘, off of The Raconteurs incredible sophomore album, is a mix of both – it’s only been played 16 times in the last four years, but garners the biggest audience response this side of ‘Seven Nation Army.’ ‘Carolina Drama‘ really stands out, as over the course of it’s six minutes, it neatly transitions the set from a soft five song run that was nearly acoustic in nature back into the hard rocking cacophony that was the rest of the show. It is telling, though, that crowd reaction is highest for The White Stripes and Raconteurs classics. Jack White is entering that period where he could be considered a legacy act, despite the quality of his newer output and the intensity and dedication with which he performs it live.

Jack White’s band is simple – Patrick Keeler on drums, Dominic Davis on bass, and Bobby Emmett on keyboards – and they provide just enough backing sound to give White and his guitar enough music to stand on and run with. White plays alongside each of them, jumping up to the drums for a build or slashing the root chords next to David on bass, but the real highlight of the band is his interplay with Emmett’s organ playing. Emmett plays the organ like it’s a co-lead instrument, and his tone is tight and bright enough that sometimes it’s hard to tell where the guitar ends and the organ begins. Against Jack White, Bobby Emmett plays wingman, he sweeps in fills to take up space, and lays down rumbles to build him up. For the encore jam, before Jack White comes out, Emmett leads the improv, his organ like a banshee shrieking at us, finally unleashed.

Before Seven Nation Army starts up, emerging from a deep and dirty segue out of ‘Ball And Biscuit’, Jack White tells us it’s the last song. There’s nothing else it could be, there’s no other riff as large, no chorus as deeply ingrained in this generation of people as the one in that singular, iconic, monstrous song. It’s when the balcony finally gets on its feet, it’s when the pits in the crowd really, truly open up, and it’s the only time all night when Jack White hands the mic over to the crowd to sing louder than him. “You’ve always been good to us, London,” he says, as a way of goodbye, if you can hear him over the crowd still singing, “and we’ll be good right back.”

Jack White’s 2026 European tour continues with dates in Bristol, Newcastle, Belfast, and Dublin. Tickets can be found here. Tour photos and videos from all of Jack White’s 2026 shows can be found here. You can find Jack White’s latest album, Frozen Charlotte, here.

Setlist – Jack White – 26 August 2026

1. Intro jam 
2. Black Math
3. Fell In Love With A Girl
4. Sixteen Saltines
5. Catch Hell Blues
6. Old Scratch Blues
7. Dollar Bill
8. Unknown
9. Temporary Ground 
10. All Along The Way 
11. We Are Gonna Be Friends
12. The Same Boy You’ve Always Known 
13. You’ve Got Her In Your Pocket
14. Carolina Drama
15. Archbishop Harold Holmes 
16. Derecho Demonico
17. I can’t Believe What I’m Hearing
18. All Your Love (I Miss Loving)
19. G.O.D. And The Broken Ribs
20. Icky Thump
    
    
21. Encore Jam 
22. Lazaretto 
23. Hypnotize
24. Neighbors Blues
25. High Ball Stepper
26. Ball and Biscuit
27. Phonograph Blues
28. Seven Nation Army

Note – setlist is based on my handwritten notes, and may be incomplete and out of order.