The White Stripes “Live in Las Vegas” 2003/2023. Third Man Vault package no. 58. Today, December 10th, is Meg White’s 50th birthday (b. 1974) Live in Las Vegas is a monster of Vault package: 3 LP’s on red, white and black vinyl. Also included are a patch, two Vegas-style art print playing cards by Rob Jones, a bumper sticker and a 7″ single featuring “Ball and Biscuit” – Side A is Jack White and Bob Dylan performing the song on March 17th 2004 at the State Theater in Detroit and Side B is the White Stripes’ first performance of the track on May 2, 2002 at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London.

Quoting widely from the box set insert about Live in Las Vegas backstory:

In the midst of the run of shows in September 2003, a promotional idea was cooked up by the team at V2 Records – 40 or so fans would be flown out to the White Stripes show at the Joint (at the Hard Rock Casino) in Las Vegas, get a meet-and-greet with the band, and then some time afterward be presented with a vinyl pressing of that evening’s show.

The original pressing is sparse to say the least. With no printed artwork, tracklisting or even credits “The White Stripes Live In Las Vegas” rubber-stamped on the labels is the only true identifier on this record. A dip through the original paperwork shows only 100 copies were ever pressed, all at United Record Pressing in Nashville.

Consider this snapshot of the night…Josh Hartnett, Steve Mcdonald, Darryl Hannah, Scott Caan and Josh Klinghoffer were all there, not necessarily together or gambling. Soledad Brothers and Whirlwind Heat tore it up as the opening bands, and the Stripes’ set itself was spectacular. The unpredictable moments electrify…an off-the-cuff take of Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” to a mid-set abandonment of “Offend In Every Way” because of its reliance upon the D minor chord [ed: relevant because two months prior Jack White was in an accident that injured his hand and he was at that time unable to play D minor chords] and an opportune tease of “Mary Had A Little Lamb” imbue the evening with spontaneous joy. Songs from Elephant had taken shape as muscled, taut beasts of energy as the blasting jolt of pure rock and roll lava via “The Hardest Button To Button” testifies. All these factors make this night stick out as measurably better than the rest.

The White Stripes sound fantastic, of course, leading off with Meg’s gigantic sound on the opener “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground,” and continuing on through the million-song set (OK not quite but it’s a lot of tracks). Jack’s guitar work on “I Want to Be the Boy” is bendy beautiful and the rollicking southern blues guitar on Son House’s classic “Death Letter” is over-the-top fabulous. Plus we get the early teaser of the smash “Seven Nation Army” and a bunch of early-Stripes favorites like “You’re Pretty Good Looking,” “Hotel Yorba” and “Fell in Love with a Girl.” Can’t even imagine how amazing it must have been to be one of those 40 folks at the Hard Rock Casino, and did they even realize how lucky they were?

Not from the Vegas show (there isn’t anything out there on YouTube) but “Dead Leaves” from Coachella the same year: