I took my kid to one hell of a show on Thursday—me, Giotis, he, Leonidas—together looking for rock on a school night. Jack White of the White Stripes obliged. Heading to the hometown show in our punk rock Ts, we wondered…would we mosh?
Swifties who think that concerts only happen in sports arenas might not be aware that local venues thrive with real, vital music. And can even draw superstars, like Jack White last Thursday night at the Phoenix Theater in Petaluma.
The White Stripes’ frontman is a prolific solo artist. Having filled massive venues like the Shoreline Amphitheater since busting out of the 90s, Jack White’s current solo tour is a daisy chain of select shows at intimate local venues promoted only days before the performance.
Space for the Rock and Roll Hopeful
“Once I saw this family lined up, I got in line and I’ve just been chatting and hanging out. So that was at, like, six-thirty, seven this morning,” says Viv Kammerer.
While she waits in line for special release youth tickets, I ask the 22 year old student: Is rock and roll still relevant?
“Rock and roll is alive and well, I guess it depends who you ask but I think there’s a lot of Hope. Yeah,” she asserts from her position at the front of the queue of 30–40 students and youth lined up for the day-of release of $25 youth tickets; that’s a hundred bucks less than the 650 or so regular tickets that sold out online in under a minute a couple of days before. Affordable student tickets are part of the outside-the-box approach of Jack White on these “surprise shows”.
Petaluma’s Phoenix Theater has got to be a stop on such a tour. The special release of tickets for young fans is a tour mandate from the man himself, perfectly in line with the non-profit teen center and punk rock jewel that is the Phoenix. A hub for young rockers of the raucous variety, a home for punk, hardcore, folk-punk and all that is obnoxiously wonderful in Sonoma county music.
Young rockers are known by the urgency of their tone, the way they deliver their words.
“I like rock and roll. A lot,” says Maxime.
Giotis: “Yeah? Is that new for you..or… were you, like, really into Swift last year but this year …?”
Maxime Filler, aged 10: “I’ve never liked Taylor Swift.”
Giotis: “So what do you like about rock and roll?”
Maxime: “I like the guitars, I play guitar.”
Cool, Maxime plays it cool. Turns out she’s played this stage with her teacher’s showcase. She was able to confirm that she shredded that night.
Giotis: “Ok, I see you. So, do you feel like rock and roll is going to be around for a while, or is this the last gasp?”
Maxime: “It’s probably going to be around for a while.”
I tell her that my son played here a couple weeks ago, himself waiting further up the block. There is a lot of generational nudging of kids by parents in this line—my wife came early and held a spot for Leonida while I pulled him out of school—but there are also these real fans among the youth in line, eager to witness the White Stripes’ pure alternative rock.
Why the Young still Rock
When you look at the youth of the North Bay, a lot of Swifties look like grunge kids, flannel and colored hair—you know, 90s—so you might think that grunge fashion came back disconnected from all the different referents that word meant back then, fashion included. But rest assured, the rumble of the 90s—that sound—is boldly back.
Like a teenager busting through the mosh pit to get in front of stage, the sounds of grunge, hardcore, post-punk, even industrial are rumbling the headphones of the high schoolers I regularly drive en masse from school to my son’s riot grrl-inspired band practice.
I asked Leonidas: Why still so rockin’?
“It’s this reverting back to like, rebellion in a sort of way, reverting back to this sense of trying to figure something out and maybe just get energy out,” he answered. “With rock I’m headbanging around the room, it just has this, like, therapeutic, cathartic ability to get this energy out, like, there’s power when you try to get something out of your chest, you know?”
These kids will make their own thing of it, certainly. Multi-hair colored, gender-fluid fashionistas. Anime fashion boosters. The grungy roots are there while the sound and fashion grow into something different, signs of something new.
Yet always in rock, reaching and standing up and pushing back at everything around, saying No! to what restraints you and Yes! to what lifts you up, Yes! to the great rock riff played with your friends in the sacred, the satanic circle that is the rock and roll bond. Head for the pit like a true mosher, an independent human awash in a community of the like-minded. Rise, enjoy, the epitome of Youth.
Jack White III Rocks the Phoenix
There is no moshing at this concert. Longtime fans too old, young ones too unfamiliar. Most shows at the Phoenix do have.
But the connection between people is just as visceral when Jack White slides over backward into the crowd, guitar still wailing, points and calls out, solicits backing vocals from the crowd, applauds them at the end. A far cry from the Shoreline Amphitheater or the Chase Center.
Truthfully, there aren’t that many kids in the crowd. So while a lot tamer than many of these bigger shows that I’ve seen at the Phoenix, there is a celebratory mood voiced by the most dedicated local music enthusiasts—you know, who always get the tickets—and regional A-listers like Giotis here and my kid, Leonidas, the bassist. Since he has played this club, after I asked him how the vibe compared.
“The band already started when we walked in. So, it was loud. We could feel the people stomping, cheering, seeing Jack White up there with a glittery hollow body guitar and it was like, this feeling of getting into this place, which I already knew, and seeing it in a different light,” he paused, looking at me. “There were, literally, these blue lights that had been put up that weren’t there normally. It felt like a different place, a new place.”
A venue like the Phoenix, a home for generations of memories, is more than four mostly intact walls. It’s a peeling mirror, a palimpsest.
“Playing in a very small venue, it’s personal, and that means a lot to big fans because it’s like, it’s a very personal thing.” says Gina Christie, back in the line, age 21. “I get to see him in a small venue and this will definitely go down in Phoenix history, for sure.”
“The Phoenix is such an awesome community. So when we heard he was coming here, we jumped on that opportunity. So we’re really excited,” says Griffin McArdle, Petaluma kid, age 16. “It’s a big community of people who love this place.”
Rock and the World
At the border of the sidewalk and the marquee, which multiple security guards hold like a parapet, a gaggle of unlucky enthusiasts get to hear the show pretty well, shuffling and stretching around for the best acoustics. Rumor has it the most patient of these made it in for the last few songs. Inside, the crowd as a whole cycles the refrain from Seven Nation Army right on through the break, full-throated, clapping, stomping until the encore.
Jack White believes. In youth, in the next gig. Believes that rock and rollers will bring themselves and those willing to follow them. The Hopeful.
“He’s still an icon and his newest album that just came out is still so good. It has [his way of] originality that we don’t see much nowadays,” says Ms Christie from the queue that has started moving, her easy look through provocateur sunglasses chic as hell.
At the show I see her among the ample headbanging, in with 40-somethings, couples managing a night out together, grannies participating with a nod, kids awkwardly reaching for a piece of something great their parents are handing down, something great to go along with all the shit left from one generation to the next. Everyone ashine knowing that, at least for tonight, we’re the lucky ones.
White gets call and response going with an easy nod and wave of hand. The audience’s joy swells, heavy metal riffs, country rocks, blues jams, all the man’s influences crush together into a diamond, the hardest rock.
The ever-present blue stage lights cast White’s ghastly complexion in a goth-adjacent look that reflects the motifs he brings to guitar. A bit of original metal—he surely would have been a hit opening for Sabbath in 60s’ Birmingham—endless blues bars flung across the room by the by electric keys, drummer stooped over a bare bones kit, a bit of witchery and rage in the lyrics, a lighter representation of the wondrous dark side of rock.
The show-goers stumble out. On a private lawn across from the theater, The Happys, local love-punk favs, are blaring their signature insecure odes to self healing. The (definitely un-)Official After Party of the Jack White show. We, Giotis and Leonidas and all the rest, watch satisfied in a faceless crowd of smiles spilling over the sidewalk onto Washington Street. The Happys capture it perfectly. A bold Yes! outside a temple of rock. Dozens gather for just a few more minutes of that sound, the unexpected location, the edge of it all. Rock as an action. Something big to do.
I took my kid to one hell of a show on Thursday—me, Giotis, he, Leonidas—together looking for rock on a school night. Jack White of the White Stripes obliged. Heading to the hometown show in our punk rock Ts, we wondered…would we mosh?
Swifties who think that concerts only happen in sports arenas might not be aware that local venues thrive with real, vital music. And can even draw superstars, like Jack White last Thursday night at the Phoenix Theater in Petaluma.
The White Stripes’ front man is a prolific solo artist. Having filled massive venues like the Shoreline Amphitheater since busting out of the 90s, Jack White’s current solo tour is a daisy chain of select shows at intimate local venues promoted only days before the performance.
Space for the Rock and Roll Hopeful
“Once I saw this family lined up, I got in line and I’ve just been chatting and hanging out. So that was at, like, six-thirty, seven this morning,” says Viv Kammerer.
While she waits in line for special release youth tickets, I ask the 22 year old student: Is rock and roll still relevant?
“Rock and roll is alive and well, I guess it depends who you ask but I think there’s a lot of Hope. Yeah,” she asserts from her position at the front of the queue of 30–40 students and youth lined up for the day-of release of $25 youth tickets; that’s a hundred bucks less than the 650 or so regular tickets that sold out online in under a minute a couple of days before. Affordable student tickets are part of the outside-the-box approach of Jack White on these “surprise shows”.
Petaluma’s Phoenix Theater has got to be a stop on such a tour. The special release of tickets for young fans is a tour mandate from the man himself, perfectly in line with the non-profit teen center and punk rock jewel that is the Phoenix. A hub for young rockers of the raucous variety, a home for punk, hardcore, folk-punk and all that is obnoxiously wonderful in Sonoma county music.
Young rockers are known by the urgency of their tone, the way they deliver their words.
“I like rock and roll. A lot,” says Maxime.
Giotis: “Yeah? Is that new for you..or… were you, like, really into Swift last year but this year …?”
Maxime Filler, aged 10: “I’ve never liked Taylor Swift.”
Giotis: “So what do you like about rock and roll?”
Maxime: “I like the guitars, I play guitar.”
Cool, Maxime plays it cool. Turns out she’s played this stage with her teacher’s showcase. She was able to confirm that she shredded that night.
Giotis: “Ok, I see you. So, do you feel like rock and roll is going to be around for a while, or is this the last gasp?”
Maxime: “It’s probably going to be around for a while.”
I tell her that my son played here a couple weeks ago, himself waiting further up the block. There is a lot of generational nudging of kids by parents in this line—my wife came early and held a spot for Leonida while I pulled him out of school—but there are also these real fans among the youth in line, eager to witness the White Stripes’ pure alternative rock.
Why the Young still Rock
When you look at the youth of the North Bay, a lot of Swifties look like grunge kids, flannel and colored hair—you know, 90s—so you might think that grunge fashion came back disconnected from all the different referents that word meant back then, fashion included. But rest assured, the rumble of the 90s—that sound—is boldly back.
Like a teenager busting through the mosh pit to get in front of stage, the sounds of grunge, hardcore, post-punk, even industrial are rumbling the headphones of the high schoolers I regularly drive en masse from school to my son’s riot grrl-inspired band practice.
I asked Leonidas: Why still so rockin’?
“It’s this reverting back to like, rebellion in a sort of way, reverting back to this sense of trying to figure something out and maybe just get energy out,” he answered. “With rock I’m headbanging around the room, it just has this, like, therapeutic, cathartic ability to get this energy out, like, there’s power when you try to get something out of your chest, you know?”
These kids will make their own thing of it, certainly. Multi-hair colored, gender-fluid fashionistas. Anime fashion boosters. The grungy roots are there while the sound and fashion grow into something different, signs of something new.
Yet always in rock, reaching and standing up and pushing back at everything around, saying No! to what restraints you and Yes! to what lifts you up, Yes! to the great rock riff played with your friends in the sacred, the satanic circle that is the rock and roll bond. Head for the pit like a true mosher, an independent human awash in a community of the like-minded. Rise, enjoy, the epitome of Youth.
Jack White III Rocks the Phoenix
There is no moshing at this concert. Longtime fans too old, young ones too unfamiliar. Most shows at the Phoenix do have.
But the connection between people is just as visceral when Jack White slides over backward into the crowd, guitar still wailing, points and calls out, solicits backing vocals from the crowd, applauds them at the end. A far cry from the Shoreline Amphitheater or the Chase Center.
Truthfully, there aren’t that many kids in the crowd. So while a lot tamer than many of these bigger shows that I’ve seen at the Phoenix, there is a celebratory mood voiced by the most dedicated local music enthusiasts—you know, who always get the tickets—and regional A-listers like Giotis here and my kid, Leonidas, the bassist. Since he has played this club, after I asked him how the vibe compared.
“The band already started when we walked in. So, it was loud. We could feel the people stomping, cheering, seeing Jack White up there with a glittery hollow body guitar and it was like, this feeling of getting into this place, which I already knew, and seeing it in a different light,” he paused, looking at me. “There were, literally, these blue lights that had been put up that weren’t there normally. It felt like a different place, a new place.”
A venue like the Phoenix, a home for generations of memories, is more than four mostly intact walls. It’s a peeling mirror, a palimpsest.
“Playing in a very small venue, it’s personal, and that means a lot to big fans because it’s like, it’s a very personal thing.” says Gina Christie, back in the line, age 21. “I get to see him in a small venue and this will definitely go down in Phoenix history, for sure.”
“The Phoenix is such an awesome community. So when we heard he was coming here, we jumped on that opportunity. So we’re really excited,” says Griffin McArdle, Petaluma kid, age 16. “It’s a big community of people who love this place.”
Rock and the World
At the border of the sidewalk and the marquee, which multiple security guards hold like a parapet, a gaggle of unlucky enthusiasts get to hear the show pretty well, shuffling and stretching around for the best acoustics. Rumor has it the most patient of these made it in for the last few songs. Inside, the crowd as a whole cycles the refrain from Seven Nation Army right on through the break, full-throated, clapping, stomping until the encore.
Jack White believes. In youth, in the next gig. Believes that rock and rollers will bring themselves and those willing to follow them. The Hopeful.
“He’s still an icon and his newest album that just came out is still so good. It has [his way of] originality that we don’t see much nowadays,” says Ms Christie from the queue that has started moving, her easy look through provocateur sunglasses chic as hell.
At the show I see her among the ample headbanging, in with 40-somethings, couples managing a night out together, grannies participating with a nod, kids awkwardly reaching for a piece of something great their parents are handing down, something great to go along with all the shit left from one generation to the next. Everyone ashine knowing that, at least for tonight, we’re the lucky ones.
White gets call and response going with an easy nod and wave of hand. The audience’s joy swells, heavy metal riffs, country rocks, blues jams, all the man’s influences crush together into a diamond, the hardest rock.
The ever-present blue stage lights cast White’s ghastly complexion in a goth-adjacent look that reflects the motifs he brings to the guitar. A bit of original metal—he surely would have been a hit opening for Sabbath in 60s’ Birmingham—endless blues bars flung across the room by the by electric keys, drummer stooped over a bare-bones kit, a bit of witchery and rage in the lyrics, a lighter representation of the wondrous dark side of rock.
The show-goers stumble out. On a private lawn across from the theater, The Happys, local love-punk favs, are blaring their signature insecure odes to self-healing. The (definitely un-)Official After Party of the Jack White show. We, Giotis and Leonidas and all the rest, watch satisfied in a faceless crowd of smiles spilling over the sidewalk onto Washington Street. The Happys capture it perfectly. A bold Yes! outside a temple of rock. Dozens gather for just a few more minutes of that sound, the unexpected location, the edge of it all. Rock as an action. Something big to do.
