Bathed in sickly shades of green and red, Alexandra and Zachary James looked like they had walked straight out of the underworld. Both were dressed in black leather, surrounded by inverted crosses and other pieces of satanic theater. Alexandra drank from a goblet filled with something resembling blood, letting it run down her chin as Zachary held an ornate cross upside down with both arms extended.

As the music descended into chaos around them, Alexandra approached the edge of the stage and spat the blood into the air. It came raining down over a crowd of raised devil horns and rock-and-roll signs. Twin Temple’s performance was theatrical, a bit excessive, but it wasn’t gimmicky. I’d say they were the perfect choice to begin a night that would soon contain, as White later promised, “a little bit of heaven and a little bit of hell.”

Most of the audience had already arrived by the time Twin Temple began. The Palladium’s general-admission floor was nearly full during their set and continued tightening afterward. Without phones to stare at, people talked, watched the stage, and shifted impatiently as the wait dragged on. You could feel the tension spreading across the room. Finally, the lights dimmed.

The crowd erupted, and Jack White burst onto the stage like a firecracker. He swept up one of his guitars, struck a chord like a match, stepped onto a speaker near the edge of the stage and shouted, “Los Angeles!” He tore into “That’s How I’m Feeling,” and as the song ended, I heard someone behind say, “This guy is a fucking rock star.”

Jack White at the Hollywood Palladium September 29 2026 photo by David James Swanson

As if White had heard him, he launched into “Black Math,” and folded it into “Suzie Q” while doing a Chuck Berry-style duckwalk across the stage. Later, he paid tribute to another piece of rock history with a cover of the Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” White is obviously aware of everyone who came before him and knows the history of rock and how to absorb and tear it apart before remaking it into his own form.

Early in the set, he told us that the night would contain some heaven and some hell. As Bobby Emmett started up on an organ, Jack began to resemble a preacher leading a particularly unruly congregation before taking the band into “What’s Done Is Done.”

Pulling from his entire career as a solo artist and with Raconteurs, White Stripes fans were especially spoiled by the setlist. “We’re Going to Be Friends,” “Fell in Love with a Girl,” “Hotel Yorba,” and “Seven Nation Army” all made appearances. The familiar songs produced some of loudest reactions. However, he never treated them as an obligation or even really played them exactly as everyone remembered. But instead he shifted and stretched the songs, allowing them to lead him down the path they wanted to go.

Words by David Saxum

Jack White at the Hollywood Palladium September 29 2026 photo by David James Swanson

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