Jack White Performs Secret Show At Reckless Records

By Eric Hehr in Arts & Entertainment on Aug 6, 2012 4:00PM



Jack White performing at Reckless Records in Wicker Park. Aug. 5, 2012. (Eric Hehr/Chicagoist)

Hours before Jack White performed his headlining set at Lollapalooza, a yellow van rolled down Milwaukee Avenue in Wicker Park, stopping in front of Reckless Records. Printed on the side of the van in big black block letters was, “THIRD MAN RECORDS.”

Most music fans know Third Man Records because of its iconic founder, the infamous Jack White, who has turned the label into a kind of rock ‘n roll Xanadu for all of his analog, reel to reel revelations. Most music fans also know that if The Third Man Records van is spotted within a 10-mile radius of a music festival, Jack White is somewhere close behind.

Some Chicagoans were smart enough to take the sighting of the van as a sign of things to come, and word gradually spread throughout the day that Jack White might (or might not) make an appearance at Reckless. Sure enough, at around 3:35 p.m., White strolled into Reckless Records and performed an unpublicized, impromptu set which included old White Stripes classics such as “Dead Leaves On The Dirty Ground” and “We're Going To Be Friends,” as well as tracks off of his latest solo album Blunderbuss such as “Hypocritical Kiss.”



The Third Man Records Van parked outside Reckless Records on Milwaukee. August 5th, 2012.

Watching White perform to a small crowd packed into Reckless Records was a bit surreal. Many have seen Jack White perform in front of thousands—a red and white ant on a distant stage—but one rarely gets the opportunity to see such an iconic musician in such an intimate setting, standing only a few feet away from everyone else in the room. For someone who has spent so much of his career blurring the lines between reality and folklore, it was almost strange to see White in Reckless and suddenly realizing that this mythical rock ‘n roll superstar is indeed a real human being. A very tall, real human being.

Part of White's charm is his unyielding adherence to the mythology of rock ‘n roll. While many modern day musicians take to Twitter and Tumblr to reveal their 140 character thoughts and pictures of what they ate for breakfast, White has always kept his artistry shrouded in calculated ambiguity. Part of this is keeping the public on their toes, and relying on traditional “word-of-mouth” publicity as the best kind of press. His appearance at Reckless was no exception, and one that will surely reverberated within those who attended for years to come.

