Detroit – They came to a concert and ended up at a wedding.
Jack White ended a glorious day in his hometown on Friday.
He brought Jean to the stage for White Stripes’ 2001 hit song “Hotel Yorba”. He introduced Jean to the crowd as his girlfriend and then told her he had a question.
“Yes?” She asked, her voice revealing that it was not a rehearsal bit. “Will you marry me?” He asked, gave her a ring, and as soon as she said yes, he rolled perfectly into the next line of the song: “Let’s get married!”
And then they did. Returning to the stage after a quick break, the white man asked the crowd, “Such a good day, is it okay to get married right now?” A small group of White’s bandmates, including White’s mother Theresa Gillis and Jean’s father Brent Markle, gathered on stage, while the official Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” (“Dear Dears, we’re gathered here today to get this thing”).
Weddings took place quickly, the bride and groom kissed, and White began dancing back on stage, concluding the 15-song, 90-minute concert with the opening line of Ragontours’ “Study, As She Goes”: “Find yourself a woman and settle down” – and “Oooo Oooo “Seven Nation Army” as people chanted. ohhhhhhAt the end of the show White and his band members took a bow.
“God bless you Detroit,” White concluded the concert. “What a day!”
White released his new solo album, Fear of the Dawn, and later performed a burning instrumental version of the “Star-Spongled Banner” at the Detroit Tigers’ opening day game in the United States. Park, the Tigers 5-4 in a game, won the ninth inning stunner.
It was a day when baseball brought back the promise again and again, and finally, the sun signaled spring. Again and again the rain formed a rainbow in the sky, and the wind blew through the city.
Before White’s concert began, he was the first of his two night stands in the Masonic arena. Saturday night playing at that place again.
Like most of the crowd, West Bloomfield’s Sarah Pills and Merritt Frischi were not expected to attend White’s wedding.
They are loyal fans: Pills estimates he has seen the show a dozen times since he started listening to White Stripes in the early 2000s.
Pills and Frischi practically had front row seats for the ceremony. It was clear from that view that something special was happening before White Jean was brought to the stage, Frichi said.
“He was doing things on the side of the stage,” he said. “He was dragging those closest to him on stage. So something was going on, he was trying to plan, and then when he brought her out something special seemed to be happening.
It was an emotional moment on stage and for the crowd, the couple agreed, and Pills said the couple cried as they watched their family members hug each other. (Do not search clips on social media: this is a phoneless concert, the audience’s phones are locked in pockets that are not allowed to be used in the auditorium.)
“I think I saw his delight,” Frichi said. “I think he was really happy. That’s why I think it was so brilliant for me to see them get married today. It was the perfect day for him.”
Jean’s father, Markel, returned to his seat in the audience after the ceremony, confirming that it was absolutely amazing. “I do not know anything,” said Merkel, who was dressed in a Third Man Records jacket that read “Case Corridor.”
Jean is from Detroit, he now lives in Nashville, and he is a signatory to White’s Third Man Records. The former lead singer of Black Bells kicked off the concert on Friday, and is set to open the concert on Sunday at the Masonic Temple Concert and the Van Andal Theater in Grand Rapids.
Third marriage to White. He was previously married to his White Stripes band McWhite and later singer-songwriter Karen Elson, and they have two children. White and Elson divorced in 2013 after eight years of marriage.
Before it turned into a pre-wedding ceremony, White’s concert spanned nearly 25 years of his life, with his solos and songs sung by White on his band’s White Stripes, The Reconders (“You Don’t Understand Me,” a piano) and Dead Weather (” I cut like a buffalo “).
He opened the show with the lead-off track “Taking Me Back” on White’s first two solo albums, Fear of the Dawn, released on Friday, 2022. (“Entering Heaven Alive” will continue in July.)
White and his three bands played on a high platform built on top of the Masonic Temple stage, which was also revealed when the massive blue screen covering the performance space was removed.
Blue was the theme of the night: it was the color of white hair, his shiny guitar, the stars in his black denim jacket and the Nikes on his feet. A video wall placed at the back of the stage provided blue images of white and his band, and blue lights bathed the stage and the crowd. Masonic’s two gigantic chandeliers also emitted blue light.
The other theme was romance, and the collection was full of songs that made it clear as the night went on. There was also White’s “love interruption” and “love selfishness” and U2’s “love blindness” from “Ashtung Baby”, which White recorded a cover story in 2011.
There were also editions of White Stripes “We’re Going to Be Friends” and “I’m Slowly Switching With You”, and introduced the White Group’s four alarm Fire Roger “milk and biscuits” dedicated to Mc White. I called her “a Detroit I love so much.”
White was a showman, gathering the crowd and applauding them throughout the show. But the fire did not erupt on his usual platform, and “ball and biscuit”, usually a door would tear its hinges, which felt reactive and urgent. Previously, during “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” White seemed to allow himself to get better at his emotions, and he at one point suffocated slightly and had to stop for a while before finishing the song.
Then, it all made sense. But before it came out, I felt like something was wrong in the evening, a little case of first night-iditis, the band washed away the bitterness on the show by testing them directly.
It didn’t matter in the end because the crowd roared as part of Detroit rock history and now they have a story they can always tell. Saturday’s concert suddenly has a lot to live for. But White is absolutely right about Friday: what a day, really.
Carol Thompson contributed to this report.
agraham@detroitnews.com
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