_via Third Man Records_

Jack White will play to thousands of people in arenas and at a number of major music festivals this summer, but first the former White Stripes frontman and rock raconteur is offering a small amount of fans the opportunity to see his new show in a smaller setting, and on Friday night in Brooklyn, the day that his new solo album Boarding House Reach dropped, White played to a packed house at the 1000-person capacity Warsaw and delivered a frantic, career-spanning set that stretched over two hours and featured an extended seven-song encore.

As the gathered mass of fans jostled for positioning in the hall, White’s band—which includes keyboardists Neal Evans of Soulive and Quincy McCrary, drummer Carla Azar and bassist Dominic Davis—emerged and welcomed out a bouncing White, who quickly launched into new album single “Over and Over and Over,” which was revealed earlier in the day along with a new video. The song, which White has said was first written for The White Stripes, then led into an actual Stripes tune, “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground,” which included a moment where White was so immersed in a solo that he knocked over his microphone stand—which actually featured three separate mics of varying vocal effects. Evans also took a solo during the song, marking the first of several moments during the night where White ceded the floor to the prolific keyboardist.

From the get-go, White was visibly jovial at the underplay, obviously invigorated to be playing to the kind of venue he and Meg White probably saw during their early days in Detroit. White returned to the subject of Warsaw a few times throughout the night, recalling his younger days growing up in a Polish neighborhood in Detroit and eating meals with his grandmother—a refreshing splash of humanity and warmth from an artist sometimes deemed aloof. White was engaged with the Brooklyn crowd throughout, though, and the exchange of energy between band and audience lasted until the encore.

White and company covered eight Boarding House Reach tracks in total during the pre-encore portion of the night, continuing with “Corporation“—whose “Who’s with me?” lyric was emblazoned on some t-shirts at the merch table on Friday—“Why Walk a Dog?,” lead single “Connected By Love“—which continued to prove that White’s solo output is really best heard in a live, unfettered setting—the disjointed, percussive “Respect Commander,” the psych freak-out “Get In the Mind Shaft,” a funky “Ice Station Zebra” and the reflective “What’s Done is Done,” which came during the portion of the set that featured White on his white acoustic guitar.

White also visited other solo material like “Lazaretto,” “Blunderbuss,” “Missing Pieces” and “Just One Drink,” along with tunes from his earlier projects, including Stripes material like early cuts “Cannon” and “Hello Operator,” the bombastic “I’m Slowly Turning Into You” and the sweet-as-honey hit “We’re Going to Be Friends.” Other set selections included The Dead Weather’s “I Cut Like a Buffalo” and The Raconteurs’ swampy ballad “Carolina Drama,” which closed out the pre-encore set.

The Warsaw crowd was ready for much more when White and company regained the stage—maybe because few in the audience knew exactly what time it was thanks to White’s no-cell-phone policy, which had all attendees lock their phones in a Yondr bag while they were in the crowd—and the band didn’t disappoint, jumping straight into “Battle Cry,” which White released in support of his baseball bat company. The White Stripes rocker “Black Math” followed, with “That Black Bat Licorice” keeping the palpable onstage energy flowing.

White brought it back down a bit with the pounding, anthemic “Would You Fight for My Love?” before launching into a barely recognizable, fuzzed-out version of his Raconteurs cut “Broken Boy Soldier.” The night then closed with White’s solo live staple “Sixteen Saltines” and a finale of the classic White Stripes blues explosion of “Ball and Biscuit.”

The performance was meticulous yet felt spontaneous, with a disjointed dexterity of which only White and few others are capable. The rock icon was loose on stage and seemed to love every second of his night playing with a stellar band to an intimate crowd. White approached the mic at the end of the show—before locking arms to bow with his bandmates—and thanked both the fans and the venue (again noting his love of pierogis), fitting closing with, “You’ve all been wonderful, and I’ve been Jack White.”