Jack White’s recent No Name album was a surprise release, literally foisted upon unsuspecting record buyers at his Third Man stores in London, Detroit and Nashville. Now, to promote the album, the ex-White Stripe is going to promote it in a similar fashion, by playing surprise shows and guerilla gigs with little or no pre-warning.
White played a Nashville date at the American Legion Post 82 bar in late July before appearances in Atlanta and Athens, Georgia and a few dates at European festivals. He played another Nashville gig last night (13 August).
Now, in an Instagram post, White has revealed his strategy for promoting No Name.
He wrote: “Hello, and love to all the peoples of the world out there. Lotta folk asking about when we are going to announce ‘tour dates’, well, we don’t know what to tell you but the tour already started at the Legion a couple of weeks ago.”
People keep saying that these are ‘Pop up shows’ we’ve been playing, well, you can call them whatever you want, but we are on tour right now.”
He continued: “These are the ‘shows’. We won’t really be announcing dates in advance so much, we will mostly be playing at small clubs, backyard fetes, and a few festivals here and there to help pay for expenses. Shows will be announced as close to the show date as possible, some shows we won’t even decide to do until that morning.
“I also want to walk through orchard fields and grab apples off of trees at will and fill my belly full of that fruit if the desire strikes me. I’m looking for that cool breeze you know?” he said, before signing off his statement as ‘Johnny Guitar (Archbishop Harold Holm3s) III’.
Whether you call them pop-up shows, guerrilla gigs or secret shows, the experience is usually exhilarating for hardcore fans. Some of the biggest names in music have tried the strategy at one time or another - the Sex Pistols went on tour ‘secretly’ in August 1977 when it became almost impossible to play gigs under their own name, and in February 2014 Prince led his purple army of fans a merry dance up and down the UK on his Hit And Run Tour.
So, Jack White fans would be advised to check their local small clubs or backyard fetes during the coming months. And social media, of course.
