White Stripes 2007 Canadian tour to become concert documentary
Last Updated: Monday, June 15, 2009 | 11:59 AM ET
CBC News
Meg and Jack White of the White Stripes perform in Whitehorse in 2007. (Vince Fedoroff/Canadian Press) Two years after the White Stripes thrilled Canadian fans with performances in each province and territory, frontman Jack White says he's working on releasing an as-yet-untitled documentary of the landmark tour.
Speaking in Toronto to promote his new band, The Dead Weather, over the weekend, singer and guitarist White said he and White Stripes bandmate Meg White will release a surprisingly revealing documentary created from footage taken during their 2007 Canadian summer tour.
"When we started, we just didn't know what we were doing, so we just [said]: 'Film everything, see what happens,'" White revealed, according to the Canadian Press.
Meg and Jack White of rock duo White Stripes played a spontaneous gig on a Winnipeg bridge in July 2007. (CBC)"I don't think we would wanna film ourselves like this. I'm pretty anti-reality television and all that ridiculous peeking behind the curtain sort of aspect of entertainment these days," he added. "But in this case, I don't think it really has that ridiculousness to it. It does have an insight into some of the things that got created and how we went about making a tour like that happen."
In 2007, the Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer cited family roots in Nova Scotia and childhood fantasies about the Yukon as reasons for the Detroit duo's extensive, 18-city trek across Canada.
In addition to scheduling gigs in typical cities like Toronto and Montreal, the band ventured to cities like Whitehorse, Saskatoon, Winnipeg and Charlottetown — unconventional stops for many similarly prominent bands.
"As we went around and played a show in every province or territory, we realized that not even a Canadian band had ever done that. Which is wild, I can't even believe that," White recalled. "How did we become the first, you know? It's already the 21st century!"
The duo also endeared themselves to Canadians by popping up in a host of unusual places throughout the tour to deliver impromptu mini-shows, from jamming on a Winnipeg bus, to eating caribou with Inuit elders in Iqaluit, to their kids-only show at a Toronto summer day camp, to rocking out from the back of boat in Charlottetown's harbour.
The duo ended their impromptu Canadian gigs with a single-note performance before hundreds of delighted fans in downtown St. John's in July 2007. (CBC)The band's final surprise appearance was a single-note performance in downtown St. John's before their final Canadian concert, scheduled for later that night.
According to White, he and drummer Meg White dreamt up the odd performances on the fly.
"We'd make up an idea at breakfast of where we'd play that day, whether it was on a boat, bus, school or city park, then we'd make it happen," White recalled.
"We didn't pre-plan it. I don't like to do that too much, because I think it ruins things."
According to White, a seventh White Stripes album is in the works. It will be the duo's newest since 2007's Icky Thump, though White has kept busy. In the interim, he established his own music label, Third Man Records, put out a sophomore album titled Consolers Of The Lonely with his second band, The Raconteurs, and, just this year, released Horehound, the debut album for his latest group, The Dead Weather.
Meg White, who took a break from touring in the latter half of 2007 for health reasons, recently wed rock guitarist Jackson Smith last month.
With files from The Canadian Press
