Jack White is one of Detroit’s favorite sons, presumably, but he wasn’t feeling the love from his home crowd when he played the Fox Theatre Monday night. According to a Detroit Free Press report, White was apprehensive about playing a plush venue where “people start to feel like they’re watching a movie.” White was so anxious about playing a rock-unfriendly venue that before the show his road manager came on stage and asked the crowd to stand up and be rowdy. The audience indeed got on their feet, but after two songs White “became visibly displeased with the standing crowd’s lack of intensity in what he wanted to be a symbiotic affair.” White said goodnight and returned backstage after just 30 minutes. After a long absence from the stage, he and his band returned and ripped through “Fell In Love With A Girl,” telling the audience, “I know as Detroiters you can overcome comfortable seating and beautiful lighting to make something as real as possible.” Also: “We’re all together now. This isn’t ‘Gone With the Wind’ in the 1930s, all right?” Eventually White’s return evolved into an hour-plus encore reporter Brian McCollum described as “cathartic.”

According McCollum, the show held special significance for White, who now lives in Nashville, because he worked nextdoor as a teen. As White explained to the crowd near the end of the night, “I told myself I’d only play here one time. This’ll be the last time I play the Fox Theatre. It was a final piece of the puzzle — I saved it for a long time.” Read the full report here.