Jack White tried to skip 'Seven Nation Army.' His Milwaukee fans wouldn't let him

Jack White had been rocking the Rave's Eagles Ballroom for 95 minutes, encore included, when he smiled, lined up with his bandmates at the end of the stage and took a bow.

Then the house lights came on, roadies started stripping the stage and the sound of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" filled the ballroom.

Sorry, Louis. The world was not wonderful. Because there was one huge problem: White hadn't played the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army," arguably the most beloved song he's ever made.

You've been to enough concerts to know once cords are unplugged, lights are on and the music plays, there's no going back.

But the thousands of fans on the ballroom floor would not stand down.

Back in January, they fought to get tickets before the show quickly sold out, and no doubt many of them ended up getting tickets for marked-up prices on sites like StubHub.

They obliged White's controlling request to seal their phones in pouches at the door, the first musician with that requirement for a full tour. And they came even after White released the most polarizing album of his career last month, "Boarding House Reach," a bizarre genre-jumper complete with some ill-advised rapping from White.

So the fans stayed put, screaming for "Army," uniting to sing the immortal, introductory guitar line: "Bummm Bum Bum Bum Bum Bummmmm Bum."

And, against all odds, democracy won. Every flurry of a roadie's scramble elicited hopeful cheers — and when several guitars were brought back onto the stage, the place erupted with high-fives and leaps and hugs and screams. One of the roadies exuberantly pumped his fist in the air, and a moment later, White was back on the stage.

"Well damn Milwaukee," White said. "Are all the bars closed tonight or something?"

For a second, there was stunning silence, like the air had been sucked out of the room. Then came those familiar guitar lines, and White and the band attacked "Army," the crowd screaming along like blood-thirsty warriors.

It was a really great moment. Before that, White had put on a really good show.

The debate's out whether "Reach" is a rewarding example of a rocker pushing his creative boundaries or a mid-life crisis from an artist desperate to seem fresh.

I lean more toward the former, but it's hard to imagine "Reach" haters not getting swept up by "Corporation" live, with White's murky guitar flexing over '70s funk shuffle, and barking like a preacher, his voice distorted by three microphones. At one point Friday he hollered like a digital banshee.

And before "Army," the intro to "Reach" track "Over and Over and Over" was the night's most electric moment, with White stalking around the stage like a shark, breaking the tension with an occasional thrust of his guitar and a speaker-rattling riff.

There was plenty of older material too — eight White Stripes songs, plus one song each for former side projects the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather. Familiar as they are, White still treated them like white-knuckle thrill rides, and overall he seemed to be having more fun than he did at his last Eagles show in 2014. Maybe that no-phone-policy had something to do with it.

His four new bandmates (including Soullive's Neal Evans on keys) were clearly having a blast too. The standout supporting player though was definitely drummer Carla Azar, evoking the raw power of Meg White with casual backstrokes for the Stripes' "Cannon," and speeding up the Raconteurs' "Steady, As She Goes," pushing it into punk territory.

And White still got to do his "Reach" rap during "Ice Station Zebra." So in the end, everyone had their way.

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THE TAKEAWAYS

White celebrated Record Store Day a day early in Milwaukee, stopping at Rush-Mor Records and Acme Records & Music Emporium in Bay View before Friday's show. According to Acme owner Ken Chrisien, White spent most of his time in the shop exploring the spoken word section.

Besides a blinding wall of lights, White had one set piece on stage Friday: a stuffed zebra. But this wasn't actually part of the tour design. It was a gift from The Rave owner Leslie West. White uncovered the zebra during "Ice Station Zebra," of course, serenaded the animal with a guitar solo and planted a kiss on its head.

For a few songs, including "Over and Over and Over" and the Raconteurs' "Steady, As She Goes," White rocked out with a funky guitar shaped like an askew bow tie — designed by none other than Annie Clark, a.k.a. St. VIncent.

White wasn't overly chatty Friday, but in the middle of the set, he shared a story from his childhood, where White and his brother would look for couches and chairs in neighborhood alleys, cut them open and collect any loose cash inside. Other friends followed suit and a turf war of sorts began. "It was the best time of my life,' White said.

White is the first musician to use Yondr for a full tour. The San Francisco-based company makes phone-sealing pouches and the setup Friday, with multiple stations in the Rave basement and multiple stations for unlocking the phone on the way out, worked pretty well. In a Journal Sentinel interview, Yondr CEO Graham Dugoni suggested that exits were actually faster for Yondr shows because people are eager to get access to their phones again. But leaving the ballroom Friday was as tedious as always and people were actually a bit antsier than usual.

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THE SET LIST

1. "Sixteen Saltines"

2. "Over and Over and Over"

3. "Corporation"

4. "Why Walk a Dog?"

5. "Wasting My Time" (White Stripes song)

6. "Ice Station Zebra"

7. "Cannon" (White Stripes song)

8. "I Cut Like a Buffalo" (Dead Weather song)

9. "Fell in Love with a Girl" (White Stripes song)

10. "Hotel Yorba" (White Stripes song)

11. "Blunderbuss"

12. "Get in the Mind Shaft"

13. "Ball and Biscuit" (White Stripes song)

First Encore

14. "Steady, As She Goes"

15. "Trash Tongue Talker"

16. "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" (White Stripes song)

17. "Connected by Love"

18. "Lazaretto"

19. "I'm Slowly Turning Into You"

Second Encore

20. "Little Bird" (The White Stripes song)

21. "Love Interruption"

22. "Seven Nation Army" (The White Stripes song)

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