The concert organizers at Billy Bob's Texas don't know Jack - Jack White, that is - but they're poised to woo him to the Fort Worth honky tonk if they can sell enough tickets for a show that is so far just a twinkle on their calendars.
[UPDATE at 11 a.m. March 9: The campaign "tilted," which means that all 2,750 tickets are now snatched up via an online crowdsourcer called tilt.com. Billy Bob's had a month to complete the campaign, but it seemed a cinch in just six days.
Selling nearly 3,000 tickets doesn't guarantee a show, however: Next step for Billy Bob's is to try to get a concert on the books with White's management group. "We're really motivated to try to make this happen," says Billy Bob's Director of Marketing Chris Spinks.]
And what if the show doesn't happen? Ticketholders will get their money back, Spinks says.
White, the beloved musician behind his latest genre-bending album Lazaretto, has never played Billy Bob's. The venue is known mostly for boot-scootin' music from big names such as Martina McBride and Clint Black - though it plays host to plenty of shows outside the country genre. Styx performed there two days ago, for instance.
White has not performed in the Dallas area in the past five years, according to Dallas Morning News archives. His side projects the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather performed at House of Blues in Dallas in 2008 and 2009, respectively.
White's many fans might agree it's time to bring him back to D-FW, and the campaign will prove whether they'll put their money on it.
"We just wanted to show Jack that the people of Fort Worth and Dallas and its region - or even the state of Texas - love Jack and want him to know that we want him here," says Spinks. Why not try it, he says?
White and his band members recently made the news because their contract required homemade guacamole (with recipe included) at a recent show in Norman, Oklahoma. The band also has a strict "no bananas" policy and other seemingly outlandish requests, which White defended in a lengthy rebuttal.
So: Will Billy Bob's honor the artist and crew's requests, no matter what?
Of course, Spinks says. "Whatever is asked will be honored and remain confidential, per all of our shows," he says. "We do this on a day-to-day basis, and artist confidentiality and is one of our No. 1 priorities, always." That should make White happy, as he black-listed the Oklahoma venue after the yes-guac, no-bananas contract was published publicly.
If White and his crew agree to a Billy Bob's show, Spinks expects the concert to be in "winter 2015-2016."
