Jack White “Live at Third Man Records” 2018. Vault Package #37, triple LP on black, blue and white vinyl. I’ve been hesitant to open this last Third Man Records Vault subscription package because of my reaction to Jack White’s latest LP Boarding House Reach but since Package #38 is set to arrive in the mail any day now, I figure I should catch up. Live at Third Man comes from two Jack White concerts, in Nashville at Third Man headquarters on March 16th and in Detroit at Class Corridor on April 18th, both intimate venues and the sonic warmth from these small spaces is evident in the music’s recording and the sound from the enthusiastic crowds.

Live at Third Man Records has a mix of tracks from White’s Boarding House Reach, Blunderbuss and Lazaretto, the 2017 single “Battle Cry”  and a few White Stripes songs. Thankfully the live performance vehicle prevented White from a shit-ton of noodling and limited his weird experimentation (though there is still a bit of that courtesy of two keyboards) so the songs from Boarding House Reach are more tolerable than they are on the original. Those songs include “Over and Over and Over,” “Corporation,” “Why Walk a Dog?,” “Connected By Love,” “Ice Station Zebra,” “Hypermisophoniac” and “Respect Commander.” From Blunderbuss: “Blunderbuss,” “Love Interruption,” “Sixteen Saltines” and “Missing Pieces” which ends with a long diatribe against the lies told by the  president of the US. From Lazaretto is just the title track “Lazaretto” (too bad, I really love several songs from that LP). Of course my favorite tracks on Live at Third Man are the White Stripes songs: “Wasting My Time,” “Hello Operator” (which starts out with an awesome audience sing-along), “Fell In Love With a Girl,” “Catch Hell Blues,” “Little Bird,” “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground,” “I’m Slowly Turning Into You” and “Seven Nation Army.”

The package is deluxe, like most Vault packages tend to be (especially the ones featuring White) with super-high quality vinyl and record packaging. The gatefold is die-cut with mix-and-match artwork from the record sleeves to “provide fans with hours upon hours of flip-flopping fun” (LOL, really it took like 5 minutes to do this). The package also has three 8×10 photos from White’s live performances featuring Jack along with band members Dominic Davis (bass), Quincy McCrary (keyboards), Carla Azar (drums) and Neal Evans (keyboards) and a giant Jack White logo flag. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do with that.