Last night at midnight in Central London, Jack White played a secret show in the basement of a disused office block, to fans clad entirely in powder blue medical gowns.
The event was a collaboration between Jack and the Punchdrunk Theatre Group who had temporarily transformed the space into the Vescovo & Co Clinic for contagious diseases, and had staffed this fake medical facility with dozens of their actors playing the roles of doctors, nurses and orderlies at the time of a disease outbreak.
Drawing on the themes of Jack White's current album, 'Lazaretto', a term used to describe a quarantine island, the experience began with an elaborate online treasure hunt. A spoof medical infomercial from 1949 appeared in the archives of online medical resource The Wellcome Trust, which contained various obtuse clues that led Jack's superfans to a website belonging to the fake medical company, Vescovo & Company. Thousands of fans submitted their details to this website as part of an online screening for a contagious disease. A lucky few progressed through the screening process that lead to them receiving a telephone call from Punchdrunk actors inviting them to an out-of-hours appointment at the Vescovo Clinic. The clinic had been created for this one occasion by Punchdrunk Theatre across multiple floors of a disused building owned by The Vinyl Factory.
On arrival, fans were asked to change in to blue medical gowns before being subjected to a variety of treatments testing in a maze of medical rooms staffed by Punchdrunk actors. Chaos descended as an outbreak alarm was raised and terrified fans were herded into a smoke filled quarantine chamber. Finally a screen was dropped to reveal Jack and band in full medical uniform who proceeded to belt out a thirty minute set before Jack himself succumbed to the mysterious disease. The rock star fell to the ground in a fit of convulsions before being strapped to a stretcher and wheeled off to a waiting ambulance.
Love that you give back sooo much to the fans in such creative ways!
And even god, herself, has fewer plans than Jack… Absolutely brilliant!
True performance art. Jack White is this generation’s Andy Warhol.
I don’t want to shake this disease. Brilliant.
As long as we keep supporting Third Man Records we will get this from Jack. Thank you Third Man and I wasn’t even there. I will keep supporting you as longs as stuff like this goes on!!!!!
This event looks absolutely amazing! Kudos to jack and Third Man for pulling it all off and keeping it a secret and keeping us all guessing until the very end. This was absolutely brilliant. Rumor has it was filmed. Hope to see it in a future Vault Package. Now I would like to make an appointment with Dr. Jack. :D :D
brilliant!!! i hope more photos of this will be posted! :)
So many things make me proud to be a fan, there’s such a long list… But things like this, that are so brilliant and so thoroughly planned down to every single tiny detail, things that are not only entertaining but that pack an emotional wallop that can’t be had at any regular show no matter how intense… Things like this leave me not only proud as a fan, but also humbled by the crazy, gyroscopic genius that comes up with such ideas. And that, and here’s the part that’s as frightening as it is astounding, will be sure to come up with something else to top this.
Guess it all makes sense now
Save Dr. White, who is going to provide us the cure now?