The White Stripes

Having had to reschedule this concert twice (once earlier in the year due to scheduling conflicts, and again after Jack’s car accident), they finally make it to Milwaukee.  Coming so soon after the October tour of NZ/AU/JP wrapped, this show nicely consolidates many of the highlights from that run, all within the same show.  Why Can't You Be Nicer To Me? gets included within I’m Finding It Harder to be a Gentleman, and Loretta Lynn’s God Makes No Mistakes is performed here within Screwdriver, both having been debuted at Adelaide 10/15.  Girl You Have No Faith In Medicine features the adlib from the Beatles' Boys at the end - the first since Hiroshima 10/26, and the Hardest Button to Button gets the Melbourne 10/14 "brain that felt like Pea-nut Butter" line.  Milwaukee also features the debut of Bob Dylan's Outlaw Blues, which follows after a blistering version of Ball and Biscuit. Out of the handful of times they would do this cover, the version here just might be the best one. "I might look like Robert Ford, but I feel like Jesse-Fucking-James!"  Other highlights include a funny play on words during Cannon, "I saw Guns! Tanks!.....Tanks, You're Welcome!"  The Death Letter/Little Bird combo is also excellent here, and during the intro you can just make out a tease of the slide riff from Sister Do You Know My Name?  The next night in Indianapolis he would perform an impromptu version of the song in this spot.  Later in the song, Jack ramps up the ending of Little Bird with a fantastic adlib of “Can't you hear me knocking Meg?!" while he taps his slide on the fretboard. Listen for the shoutout to the local crowd before Boll Weevil, a throwback to their performances in town from earlier years: "Are we at the Cactus Club? My memory's not so good. Hi Milwaukee, I forgot to say hello to you!” And later in the song, an acknowledgement of how the band were feeling by this point in the tour, so close to home, and yet still so far away:  "See it's funny, because you all have a home, I guess. But my sister and I, no such luck. Y'all here, you got Milwaukee, Green Bay, Oconomowoc. We used to have Detroit, but that was a long, long, long time ago."