Jack White to headline Victorian gig series – by playing at venue that birthed his biggest hit

Jack White, former frontman of the White Stripes, will be returning to the small but mighty Australian music venue that birthed one of his biggest hits, Seven Nation Army, for a one-off gig in December.

White, who released a surprise solo album in July , will be headlining Victoria’s Always Live initiative, a 17-day program now in its third year, which will also bring St Vincent, Róisín Murphy, the Offspring and rising electronica star Anyma to Australia.

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White will play the 750-capacity Corner hotel in Melbourne, where, during a White Stripes sound check in January 2002, he casually turned out the now-iconic seven-stroke guitar riff of what would become the band’s breakthrough international hit: Seven Nation Army.

White has spoken fondly about this career-changing moment in the decades since. In the 2008 documentary It Might Get Loud, he told guitarists Jimmy Page and the Edge about the underwhelming reaction of his friend Ben Swank, who was there at the time (and later became co-pilot of Third Man Records): “I started playing this riff, and I thought ‘Oh this is really cool’ and [Ben] was like ‘Nyeah, it’s all right’.”

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White was undeterred: “It’s almost great when people say that because it almost makes you get defensive in your brain, and think, ‘No, there’s something to this, you don’t see it yet. It’s gonna get there. You gotta have some imagination.’ So I kept at it.”

The riff went on to become the earworm of Seven Nation Army, the first single of the White Stripes’ 2003 album, Elephant. The song shot to the top of Billboard’s Alternative chart, going on to win the Grammy for best rock song – and coming in at No 3 on Triple J’s Hottest 100 for 2003. The riff has since taken on a life of its own, inspiring crowd chants at sports matches and music festivals.

Always Live, whose 2024 program was announced on Wednesday, was the brainchild of the late Australian music mogul Michael Gudinski , founder of Mushroom Records and Frontier Touring. An attempt to revitalise a live music industry decimated by the Covid-19 pandemic, it is funded by the Victorian government and has brought out Foo Fighters and Christina Aguilera in past iterations. The 2024 lineup will also feature more than 200 Australian artists, including Missy Higgins, Chet Faker and Tina Arena, who will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of her album Don’t Ask; and the return of First Nations event Blaktivism, which will be headlined by Baker Boy and feature Uncle Bart Willoughby, Tasman Keith and Yirrmal.

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Of the 65 Always Live events, more than a third will take place in regional Victoria, including a touring all-ages event, a four-stop Victorian tour from Ripple Effect, an all-female band from the Aboriginal community Maningrida and a celebration of music from the Torres Strait Islands, Boite Voices Maiem.

White will also be heading to regional Victoria, performing at Ballarat’s civic hall the night before he plays the Corner hotel. It will be his first Australian gig since his single-night appearance at Adelaide’s Harvest Rock festival in 2022, and his first gig in Victoria since 2019, when he toured as part of his Grammy-winning Nashville band the Saboteurs.

• Always Live runs from 22 November until 8 December 2024