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White Stripes to tour Canada

bobfrombob

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bobfrombob

bobfrombob

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from Stereogum http://www.stereogum.com/archives/005214.html

 

Some of these Canadian dates are very cool. I lived in Yellowknife for years and would love to go back for this show......

 

 

 

Jack and Meg have never really "done" Canada before -- at least not in a touring capacity -- so a couple of weeks after festivals in Europe and one in Manchester, TN (i.e. Bonnaroo), the Stripes will embark on an exhaustive exploration of our neighbor to the north. Said Jack White:

 

Having never done a full tour of Canada, Meg and I thought it was high time to go whole hog. We want to take this tour to the far reaches of the Canadian landscape. From the ocean to the permafrost. The best way for us to do that is ensure that we perform in every province and territory in the country, from the Yukon to Prince Edward Island. Another special moment of this tour is the show which will occur in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia on July 14th, The White Stripes

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Sir Stewart

Sir Stewart

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Exactly.

I have only been there to see Wilco and I vowed to never set foot in that place again.

I saw The Raconteurs/Dylan show there last fall. Whatta pit. I got all excited when that source reprinted the GBMS tour dates a few weeks ago and it said they were coming to the Opera House. Damn.

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Papillon Parade

Papillon Parade

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I will be at the Savoy Theatre show in Glace Bay. It's 2 minutes from my house. I just get back from seeing Wilco at Massey on June 30th and then get to see Jack and Meg in my backyard. We went out as them for Halloween last year and everything! About two people knew who we were.

 

I will post a full report of the evening. This was in our local paper:

 

Another special moment of this tour is the show which will occur in Glace Bay on July 14, the White Stripes' 10th Anniversary,adds White, whose original last name is Gillis, evidence of his rumoured Cape Breton ancestry.

 

We'll have them in a kitchen party before they know what hit them! Slainte!

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Kalle

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They're passing through the Sault! Right after Thunder Bay, too bad yogurt has more culture than Sault Ste. Marie...

 

I wish they would've played London a couple days earlier then I could've gone to see them after Wilco on the 30th, oh well.

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Elixir Sue

Elixir Sue

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Southaven, MS!!! That's where I live!

I think I might go to that show. Have you been to the Snowden Grove Park Amphiteater?

 

I'm hoping for some Tennessee/Kentucky action to follow that leg of the tour. :dancing

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PigSooie

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I think I might go to that show. Have you been to the Snowden Grove Park Amphiteater?

 

I'm hoping for some Tennessee/Kentucky action to follow that leg of the tour. :dancing

 

You should. I saw Dierks Bentley and The Wreckers there last summer, but they have completely renovated the place. I'm actually heading down there tonight for a BBQ festival. Here's a picture of what the new place is supposed to look like when completed. When I went there weren't any seats.

 

snowden.jpg

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bobfrombob

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They're passing through the Sault! Right after Thunder Bay, too bad yogurt has more culture than Sault Ste. Marie...

There's a hotel in SSM (or at least there was?) that probably has the best hotel water slide on the planet.

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Chendizzle

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I saw The Raconteurs/Dylan show there last fall. Whatta pit. I got all excited when that source reprinted the GBMS tour dates a few weeks ago and it said they were coming to the Opera House. Damn.

 

My girlfriend really liked Dylan/Raconteurs, and although it wasn't the best Wilco show I've been to, it wasn't horrible. Certainly better venues out there though.

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Dreamin'

Dreamin'

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from Stereogum http://www.stereogum.com/archives/005214.html

 

Having never done a full tour of Canada, Meg and I thought it was high time to go whole hog. We want to take this tour to the far reaches of the Canadian landscape. From the ocean to the permafrost. The best way for us to do that is ensure that we perform in every province and territory in the country, from the Yukon to Prince Edward Island. Another special moment of this tour is the show which will occur in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia on July 14th, The White Stripes

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remphish1

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Now that's a Canadian tour! :worship

 

(Too bad they missed Victoria, on Vancouver Island. But I won't quibble. Much.)

 

The Iqualuit show capacity is 500 I think! Too bad airfare form Mainland USA is roughly $1500! It would be an expierence though! How can they make money on a show like that with equipment transportation etc?! :music

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Dreamin'

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How can they make money on a show like that with equipment transportation etc?!

That is a very good question.

 

iqaluit.jpg :guitar :rock

 

Iqaluit is located east of Nunavut's mainland and north of Quebec on Baffin Island' date=' and is [b']only accessible via aircraft, dogsled, snowmobile and some boats[/b].

Imagine the White Stripes traveling via dogsled. How cool would that be?

 

(Too bad they aren't playing Igloolik. But I won't quibble. Much.)

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bobfrombob

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God bless Jack.

 

We love you, Iqaluit!

 

Jack White explains why the White Stripes decided to tour every province and territory in Canada

 

GUY DIXON

 

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

 

In their eccentric way, the White Stripes have already won over Canada without playing a note.

 

When the American alt-roots, blues-rock superstars announced their summer tour last week, with an itinerary including such unlikely stops as Thunder Bay, Glace Bay, N.S., and Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut, the decision struck a power chord with fans on Internet message boards.

 

But for guitarist Jack White, who lives in Nashville and originally formed the bare-bones duo with drummer Meg White in Detroit, it's all about trying something new, booking agents be damned. The rationale for the tour? The band's sixth album Icky Thump is coming out June 19, and Jack and Meg always like to mix things up. They had never done a full Canadian tour. So why not now? Simple as that.

 

"I told them when I handed in the album and we started talking about touring, I said, 'Before anybody starts getting any ideas, this time we're doing a solo tour of Canada, and I will not take no for an answer.' I put my foot down before anyone even mentioned any shows we were going to play," Jack said on the phone from a Nashville studio, where he's recording the second album for his side project as a member of the Raconteurs.

 

"I told our tour manager and our manager, 'I want to play in every province and territory in Canada, and I want you guys to call up people and make sure that if we're going to do it, we're going to do it. I don't want to come home and say, well, we technically didn't play every province because we didn't play Prince Edward Island or something like that.' You know what I mean?"

 

When you're as big as the White Stripes, you can make an idea like that happen. Beginning June 24 at Deer Lake Park in Burnaby, B.C., hitting Canadian cities big and small, and ending on July 16 at the Mile One Centre in St. John's, the itinerary suits the band. And they'll likely turn up looking less like American Apparel outcasts and more like the Mariachi Goths they are today.

 

"There's a selfish pleasure that me and Meg will get from seeing these places we've always wanted to see, while we're at work," he added. "There's that side of it. But as far as the novelty side, I look more at it as a challenge. Why do bands not go to out-of-the-way places? Because it's hard.

 

"When you don't take the easy way out, something interesting happens. Maybe we'll have the best show of our lives in Nunavut. Maybe it'll be a disaster, who knows?"

 

In the White Stripes' early touring days in the late 1990s, the U.S.-Canadian border and distances between Canadian cities proved too much of a barrier. It's a reality Canadian bands know all too well. "We found it difficult back in the day when we were just touring around in a van. So we never had a chance to do it. Now, finally, let's do one. For God's sake, how many albums do we have to put out before we do a tour of Canada?

 

"I want to push to see how far we can go with it. Okay, we've never done a tour of Canada. Well, let's not take the easy way out and just play all the major cities. You play Winnipeg, Manitoba. What about the guys who live 200 miles north or whatever? I always think that if I lived in the Northwest Territories or the Yukon, it would be nice if bands came here once in a while."

 

The duo's ruckus blues meets angular post-grunge makes for a loud show, but it suits small venues, with Jack emoting a band-load of heaviness from his six-string and the deceptively lithe Meg banging on her drums. Nevertheless, they regularly play gigs double the size of Iqaluit's total population of 6,000. In 2005, the band headlined Britain's Glastonbury Festival in front of more than 100,000. That track record makes the smaller Canadian dates all the more novel.

 

"A booking agent's job is to see how big a place you can play. If a band can play a 20,000-seat place, it's kind of ridiculous in a business sense to put them in a 3,000-seat theatre. [but] we have always not seen eye to eye with booking agents on our tours, because we're not looking at it from that standpoint," Jack said with Southern matter-of-factness.

 

"There's nothing worse than a band who has corporate sponsorship, who comes through town and plays the same set every night wherever they go, and they play it [the music] just like it is on the album. We want to do a tour where we go places we've never been before. We play a different set every night. We don't have a set list in this band, and we play venues that people don't normally play and see what happens. That's a lot more interesting to me."

 

Remember this is a group that kicked off its last major tour in South America, where White Stripes albums can be a rare commodity and a world away from music-biz hubs such as New York or London. In typical fashion, Jack takes inspiration for all this from the past.

 

Elvis Presley never toured outside of the United States except for a few dates in Canada. The excuse Presley gave the press was that if he played one European country, for instance, it wouldn't be fair to the others and he'd wind up having to play them all.

 

"In the same sense, you say to yourself, if you're going to play every province, you're going to have to play every province," Jack added with a laugh.

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Papillon Parade

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"I want to push to see how far we can go with it. Okay, we've never done a tour of Canada. Well, let's not take the easy way out and just play all the major cities. You play Winnipeg, Manitoba. What about the guys who live 200 miles north or whatever? I always think that if I lived in the Northwest Territories or the Yukon, it would be nice if bands came here once in a while."

 

While I don't live in the desolate north, I do live on a very small island off the coast of Nova Scotia. As you can imagine, we don't get many good bands coming to the area. The closest they come is Halifax, which is a 5 hour drive. I have to travel out of province to most shows, so having them come to my hometown is an unbelievable treat that everyone around here appreciates and will remember for some time.

 

:canada

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