As Jack White’s been touring the country supporting his new album Lazaretto, he’s also been hitting the late night talk show circuit. This week alone he joined Jimmy Fallon on the Tonight Show and then sat down with Conan O’Brien to talk all things from cell phones to the transcontinental success of “Seven Nation Army,” plus perform a couple of songs off his new disc. But the Third Man Records’ boss has a busy schedule and can’t spend his time on camera rehearsals before each of these shows, so in the case of Coco’s, they had interns sit in for White and his band as the production team got all its shots right for the real deal.
Despite White’s recent suggestions that his brand of bluesy rock’n’roll has been ripped off by the Black Keys and soundalikes (for which he later apologized), it turns out mimicking the guy’s moves is not all that easy. As you may have guessed, O’Brien’s air-guitar miming interns are as not good at being Jack White and his band as Jack White and his band actually are. And since their pre-performance performance was video taped and all, Conan jumped at the opportunity to point this out on Thursday night’s show.
“I think these interns could have tried a little harder,” said Conan, poking fun at the low-level staffers’ stiff moves, flat faces, and low energy. “It’s like the bears at Disney Land that play music are running low on battery… We don’t pay them enough.”
Wonder what they would have said if those kids had really shred. Here’s betting we’ll get a chance to see on a later show.
