Jack White returns to the Bomb Factory in Deep Ellum

There was no hardest button to button at the Bomb Factory on Wednesday night; Jack White pushed every one of them anyway.

By the time the house lights dropped, the line for the venue had already wrapped around the building like a fuzz pedal cable on a crowded stage. Inside, the room was packed shoulder to shoulder. Not one of those shoulders held up a glowing rectangle.

White’s tour runs on a strict no-phone policy. Once your ticket’s scanned, it goes into a locked Yondr pouch. We wore it around all night like a backstage pass to nowhere, and staff unsealed it when the show ended.

That may sound extreme, but White is in good company. Artists like Danzig and Tool have long waged similar wars on the screen. And after a decade of watching concerts through a strangers’ iPhone, a room without a sea of red record buttons felt like a small miracle. We just wrote about concert etiquette, so we’re not mad about it. The show belonged to the people standing in it. You left with the night stored where it used to be kept: in your head.

LABELS hit the accelerator first

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Fort Worth’s LABELS opened the night. They play fuzzy, fast garage-punk with a psych-rock streak, and they floored it from the first note.

Many people in the crowd were clearly meeting them for the first time, but that didn’t matter. Frontman Tyler Waller bounced around the stage like a human Roomba, bumping off invisible walls and changing direction at full speed. Guitarist Braden Burgan, who co-founded the band with his twin brother, drummer Taylor Burgan, pulled Tom Morello-style squeals from his guitar that sounded like a car alarm with a music degree.

The energy needle stayed pinned for about 95 percent of the 40-minute set. The one exception was an older track where Waller swapped his yell for something calmer, a song you heard more than you felt, and yet you still couldn’t look away.

Near the end, Waller stared out at the packed room and said, “This is the first and likely only time we’re going to play a stage like this.” When the crowd roared through their bow, he added, “Y’all are going to make me cry.”

Nobody in the building could have sold that with more sincerity. Their debut EP, “Live to Revive,” drops Oct. 29 through Austin’s Spaceflight Records. If Wednesday was any sign, we disagree with Waller: this won’t be the last big stage they see.

Jack White took the stage and didn’t let go

White walked out at 9:15 p.m. and kept the needle right where LABELS left it. Spread across two hours, he played 25 songs and never gave the room a chance to breathe.

He opened with “That’s How I’m Feeling” from 2024’s “No Name,” the record he slipped into Third Man shopping bags like a garage-rock Easter egg. Then, he went straight into “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground.” A pair of Raconteurs cuts followed, “Carolina Drama” and “Broken Boy Soldier,” and that pretty much set the rule for the night. White Stripes, Raconteurs and solo material all got equal billing, and every song got equal ferocity.

Jack White and the Church of Loud.

There was no screen behind the band. There were no graphics. There were only blue and white lights sweeping the stage. White’s catalog has always gone back to basics, from peppermint red-and-white to his solo-era blue, so this fit. With nothing to look at but the band, everyone locked in. White seemed perfectly happy to go feral.

A guitar clinic disguised as a riot

White is one of the most gifted guitar players alive, and Wednesday didn’t feel like a debate. He punched the guitar’s body to shake loose fuzzy notes. He slid a brass slide over the strings on “Old Scratch Blues” and “Ball and Biscuit.” He bent strings so far, you’d swear they were about to turn inside out.

“I play the kind of blues that only I know about,” he told the crowd, “But you may not know about.” Fair enough. Picture garage rock and the Delta blues brawling in a parking lot behind a Detroit upholstery shop.

The best moments were his “Crossroads”-style duels with keyboardist Bobby Emmett. They traded hammer-ons, pull-offs, bends and shakes like two gunslingers who had both decided to miss on purpose. The improvised jams played like a live sparring match.

White’s voice matched the guitar’s range. He could slip in soft on “Love Interruption,” then let out a high-pitched yell just for the hell of it. Somehow, it never got sloppy; it stayed raw and passionate.

Editing in real time

The band sped up and slowed down like a film editor scrubbing through footage frame by frame. There was no tuning between songs. White swapped from an acoustic tone to blues guitar while the band rocked out a fade behind him.

The fade on “Screwdriver” sounded like playing cards flapping in a bicycle’s spokes as the wheel slowed to a stop. It was a mechanical, perfectly timed wind-down from a band that runs like a machine.

The high point came with “Fell in Love with a Girl.” On the “White Blood Cells” album, it’s a two-minute sprint. White slowed it down and gave it a new flavor, the kind you only earn after 30-plus years of practice. He tipped his hat to the energy of the early 2000s and added some hard-won wisdom.

Proof that rock shows don’t need a screen saver.

After about seven songs, people noticed he hadn’t said much. Mostly he pressed his fingers to his ears so the crowd could shout lyrics back at him. Then he cleared it up: “Just because I’m not talking to you doesn’t mean I’m mad at you. I still love you.” He let the guitar do the rest of the talking.

The encore brought the house down

He worked in newer cuts like “Dollar Bill” and “Neighbors Blues,” plus “Lazaretto” and a cover of Henry Mancini’s “Peter Gunn” theme, the most noir detour of the night. Then the encore lit the place up. “Icky Thump” and “That Black Bat Licorice” shook the room, and “I Think I Smell a Rat” landed with a snarl.

Then came the riff. The whole building chanted “Seven Nation Army” like a stadium during the World Cup, and the floor bounced.

It felt like a rock opera, and it was one of the best rock shows you can see right now.

As for Charley Crockett, the Texas troubadour who picked a fight with White, we’d suggest he catch the next tour date. Bring an appetite, Charley. You’ll be eating those words.