Jack White Holds Surprise Show In Rapid City

Friday’s show at the Performing Arts Center of Rapid City was one of five the rock and blues guitarist says he’s hosting in states where he hasn’t yet played before he takes a long break from performing live. He has now played pop-up shows in four states over the last week.

White announced Friday morning that he would be playing the show that evening in Rapid City. Tickets were sold only at the Ernie November music store and hundreds of fans lined up along Main Street for a chance to grab a seat for only $3.

Many fans of the man who’s also led The Dead Weather and The Raconteurs skipped work to get one of the 700 tickets available.

“It rewards the slackers,” Dan Ames, a graphic designer, jokingly told the Rapid City Journal.

The performances so far have been the eccentric guitarist’s first acoustic-only shows. He’s been joined by fiddler Fats Kaplin, singer-fiddler Lillie Mae Rische and bass guitarist Dominic Davis.

The quartet uses ribbon microphones, a technology dating to the 1920s that remains valued for its amplification characteristics.

White has been touring since he released his second solo album, the Grammy-nominated Lazaretto, last summer.

White and now ex-wife Meg White launched the White Stripes in the late 1990s. The duo’s bluesy, garage-rock sound won wide acclaim.

In 2007, the White Stripes canceled their fall tour, citing acute anxiety suffered by Meg White. Performances scrubbed included dates in Boise, Idaho; Rapid City, South Dakota; Fargo, North Dakota; and Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

White has only yet to Fargo. He also played Anchorage, Alaska earlier in the week.