Jack White Stands Behind His Concert Cell Phone Ban!

As Jack White prepares for a big North American tour with his first stop happening in Detroit, don't expect to be getting cell phone pictures or videos for any of your social media. If you bring a phone to the show, it will need to be locked away in a Yondr pouch while in the venue. I'm sure a lot of people will not be happy with this decision, but it is the right of the musician to have a set of rules for his own headlining show. Jack White was interviewed a few days ago by the Toronto Sun about this topic and he stated:

 "I was hoping it would be more of an art project. I wanted to surprise people. I thought it would be great if people showed up and they found out right when they got there that there were these pouches for the phones. I thought it would excite them and possibly make some of them upset. But it’s funny. I go to movies and everyone turns their phone off. You go to the symphony, there’s no phones. Church, no phones. There’s all these places where it’s already happening. So let’s try a rock ’n’ roll concert and see what happens."

"I want people to live in the moment, and it’s funny that the easiest way to rebel is to tell people to turn off their phone. If your phone is that important to you that you can’t live without it for two hours then I don’t know. Maybe it’s time to see a therapist.”

I am surprised that an artist in 2018 would really push for a full out cell phone ban during his concert, but he does bring up a fair point that we do not use our cell phones when at the movies or even at a play. I'm guilty of taking lots of pictures and videos during a concert, and feeling the need to get it posted on my facebook, and Twitter as quickly as possible. So, this would actually allow me to fully enjoy the show without having the urge to to be on my phone and trying to grab as many random pictures and stuff as possible. However, if this became the norm for every concert, I would seriously think this would prevent me to wanna attend many shows throughout the year, as social media is a big part of our daily lives these days. Hopefully this will only be done by select artists going forward, and not a full out band in the coming years, but only time will tell. 

Photo: Getty Images