At first, it looked like Jack White wasn’t going to pivot much on Night 2 at the Palace Theatre. Nor should he have felt obligated to.
Returning for his second of two instantly sold-out shows at the fittingly rugged but refined-sounding St. Paul theater on Tuesday, the Detroit rock invigorator opened with the same two songs as the night before, “Old Scratch Blues” and “That’s How I’m Feeling,” each off his latest record, “No Name.” He and his three band members played them with the same ultra-manic, in-your-face, put-in-your-earplugs delivery as the night before. The 2,500 fans lit up with the same floor-pogoing, headbanging response as on Monday, too.
For the third song on Tuesday, though, the former White Stripes frontman didn’t just change up the set list from Night 1. He dropped in a song he hasn’t played anywhere else on his No Name Tour: a loose but fiery version of Johnny Cash’s “Big River,” which references St. Paul in its second verse.
That was the start of what felt like a lot of special treatment for Night 2 attendees. White wound up playing 14 different songs out of 24 that were not featured in Monday’s set list.
He played three more White Stripes tunes than the night before; 10 compared with seven. Only three were repeats: “Hotel Yorba,” “Icky Thump” and, of course, “Seven Nation Army,” which he played as a pre-encore finale Tuesday instead of at the very end, as on Monday.
Some of the added highlights from his old band on Tuesday included a rustic, raw, bluesy take on “Let’s Build a Home” early in the set and an organ-hazy tear through “I’m Slowly Turning Into You” mid-set. In the encore, they offered a cool extended-jam melding of the wicked Stripes cuts “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” and “Screwdriver.”
Other add-ons Tuesday included: an organ-laced “I Cut Like a Buffalo,” originated by another of White’s side bands, the Dead Weather; one of the “No Name” record’s punkiest tracks, “Bombing Out;” several other cuts off White’s older solo albums, highlighted by “Sixteen Saltines” in the encore, plus one brand new song, also performed in the encore.
Was there a better show of the two? That maybe depends on what you were looking for. Monday’s set was shorter but more furious and frantic. Tuesday’s show was a little longer (95 minutes), more jammy and lighter on tunes from that excellent new record.
