Jack White Tears Into Austin With a Show at Mohawk, and a Surprise Performance at Contintental Club

Few artists are as adept at writing their own mythology as Jack White, and the Detroit-bred rocker added to his tome of epics with a whirlwind trip through Austin on Thursday that immediately became the stuff of legend.

Keeping in line with his currently unfolding No Name Tour, a moniker based the his most recent album of the same name, the abrupt show announcement landed on Monday: four dates scheduled across as many days with an Austin appearance at the 900-capacity Mohawk set for Nov. 14 (following Tulsa and Dallas the preceding nights, and before San Antonio this evening). Then, another surprise the morning of the show … don’t look now, Jack will be at the Continental Club for a matinee gig in just a few hours, entry first-come-first-served, so get your asses outta bed and hop in line. About 100 fans were thanking their lucky stars they were awake by 8am when the word got out.

“Are you alive, Austin?” White asked the roaring Mohawk crowd after ripping through his first three songs. “I know you are – I checked in with you earlier.”

The cheeky invocation referring to day’s afternoon Continental performance was the sole pause throughout the 75-minute set, and it illustrated what White has so aptly achieved throughout the last few months, not to mention since the launch of his solo career in 2012: He’s prevented his presence from ever going stale by constantly expanding and at times essentially rewriting his songbook – which stretches back to his White Stripes origins in the early 2000s – live on stage. It’s a brilliant, free-flowing formula: a different band every tour and no set lists (songs are called out in the moment with subtle signals to accompanying musicians), which serves to imbue old songs with new life among a smattering of new tracks.

That approach played out vividly at Mohawk over the course of 18 tunes, which included only a few of his raucous, decidedly raw new cuts (“Old Scratch Blues” and “That’s How I’m Feeling” to kick off a high-octane run, and “What’s the Rumpus?,” “Tonight Was a Long Time Ago,” and “Underground” near the night’s conclusion). The set otherwise leaned heavily on a mix of White Stripes classics (“Little Bird,” the show’s most vehement singalong “Hotel Yorba,” and “Cannon”), plus choice tracks from interim outfit the Raconteurs (“Top Yourself” and “Broken Boy Solider”).

To keep things extra fresh, White’s been throwing in a couple of rarities for the diehards at each show. For the Mohawk crowd, he chose two White Stripes songs only performed a few times over the past decade: a thumping run through “Blue Orchid” and a shred-heavy rendition of “Let’s Build a Home.”

White masterfully kept audience members on their toes, wildly thrashing about the stage while inserting screaming guitar solos where they might not normally be and often inciting blues, soul, and even psych-tinged jams among his ace band members (drummer Patrick Keeler, bassist Dominic Davis, and keyboardist Bobby Emmett). Though the final stroke, an announcement that the band wouldn’t be able to play an encore because of the venue’s setup (accessing the green room and returning to the stage requires a walk outside on a public sidewalk), left many people lingering, visibly disappointed, when the house music came on. Still, fans won’t have to wait too long for a reprise. Moments before the show started, White posted about a full 2025 tour, which includes two stops in Austin on May 4 and 5 at ACL Live.

Rather than play a massive venue like he did for his last proper Austin show in 2022 at the Moody Center, he’s instead gifting his fans with another two relatively intimate appearances – 2,750 per night versus 15,000. And so, White will continue to grow his legend in Austin with two sets fated to include entirely different song choices, and only a handful of folks lucky enough to tell the tale.