Jack White Finally Conquers Hometown Shed Pine Knob (Live Review)

JACK WHITE
Pine Knob Music Theater
Clarkston, Michigan
July 25, 2026

Jack White’s first-ever concert at Detroit-area mainstay Pine Knob Music Theater, located significantly at 33 Bob Seger Drive, was a massive sold-out homecoming packed with over 15,000 fans, but It felt more like a rip in the space-time continuum than a 2020s rock show in a storied shed. White’s been requiring concertgoers to lock their phones in Yondr pouches for years, but this enforced throwback to the 20th century hit different because it was both the largest phone-free show he’s ever done and the largest full hometown show he’s ever done. The audience was heavily Gen X and Millennial, the last eras of Detroit-area folks for whom a phone-less pilgrimage to Pine Knob for a rock show was a teenage right of passage. Turns out hometown audience focus is a powerful muscle that White wielded effortlessly.

Pine Knob Brand Returns In Detroit As Amphitheater Gets New Naming Rights

Though the preshow DJ leaned in to Motor City legends like the aforementioned Bob Seger, the MC5 and Eminem, and the brief gentle moments during White’s set elicited actual lighters (!) held aloft, nostalgia was not the vibe. After openers Prostitute and Easy Action powered through their sets, White, who was raised on Detroit’s southwest side, studded his with fresh jams from his excellent new album Frozen Charlotte. (July 10, Third Man Records) These new songs, including “Thick as Thieves,” “Dollar Bill” and “Derecho Demonico,” all exist somewhere In the perpetual stomping blues-rock frequency White occupies, where it could as easily be the 1920s, the 1960s, the 1990s, or some undefined future where we’ve all reverted to analog tools. 

He also came armed with favorites from across his discography. He ladled out Raconteurs goodies, including a venue-wide singalong on “Steady As She Goes,”  with the added bonus that drummer Patrick Keeler is also a Raconteur. There was also solo album title track “Lazaretto,” and plenty of White Stripes staples like “Icky Thump,” “Dead Leaves on the Dirty Ground,” and the inevitable closer “Seven Nation Army,” that’s become something of a ubiquitous classic heard at sorting events and weddings alike.

But lest you forget, somehow, where this Hall of Famer came from, he repeatedly nodded to his hometown roots. The onstage flipboard, like something out of an old-time train station, read “Detroit Gospel.” “Hotel Yorba,” the White Stripes cut about a time-worn hotel on the Detroit waterfront, snuck into the main set. His goofy silver jester Frozen Charlatan, White’s quasi alter-ego of sorts started the encore with a sign that said, “I Still Call it DTE Energy Music Center,” a locals-only jibe that got a huge roar out of a crowd that was saying “I Still Call it Pine Knob” from 2001 to 2022 when the local electric company bought naming rights.

“Brothers and sisters of Detroit,” White sermonized at the top of the night. “What you got, let’s get it out tonight” Yes, to mangle a phrase from the MC5, he done kicked it out.

White’s recent Pollstar Boxoffice Reports on this tour include a sold-out July 10 performance at Washington, D.C.’s Anthem grossing $503,000 on 6,000 tickets ; and a July 17 show at Boston’s MGM Music Hall grossed $384,995 selling 4,953 tickets. Those numbers would put this Pine Knob play at well over $1 million.

SET LIST:
Intro Jam
That’s How I’m Feeling
Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground
Sixteen Saltines
Dollar Bill
It’s Rough on Rats (If You’re Asking)
Hotel Yorba
Broken Boy Soldier
G.O.D. and the Broken Ribs
Cannon
Old Scratch Blues
The Union Forever
Delta Bound
Fell in Love With a Girl
Steady, as She Goes
Encore Jam
Icky Thump
Thick as Thieves
Derecho Demonico
Carolina Drama
Little Bird
Raising the Grain
Lazaretto
Seven Nation Army