Jack White drew a crowd

Jack White turned a last-minute Coachella booking into one of the busiest scenes at the Mojave tent on Saturday, April 11. (ocregister.com) Coachella added White to its Weekend 1 schedule on Tuesday, April 7, after months of lineup rollouts, and slotted him into the Mojave tent on Saturday afternoon. Rolling Stone reported the set was scheduled for 45 minutes, while festival livestream listings showed him opening Mojave at 4 p.m. Pacific time. (rollingstone.com) (youtube.com) By Sunday, April 12, major festival coverage had elevated the performance from surprise booking to one of the weekend’s defining rock sets. The Los Angeles Times included White in its 21-moment roundup for Coachella’s 25th-anniversary opening weekend. (latimes.com) (msn.com) The crowd response stood out partly because Coachella’s 2026 bill was led by pop stars including Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber and Karol G. White’s Mojave appearance gave the first weekend a high-profile rock set outside the main-stage headliner lane. (glamour.com) (ocregister.com) That Mojave opening slot has also become a recurring place for Coachella surprises. The Hollywood Reporter noted that Weezer and Ed Sheeran were added into the same stage-and-time pattern in recent years, and White followed that playbook in 2026. (hollywoodreporter.com) Reports from the set described a hit-heavy show built to land quickly with a festival audience. Setlist.fm logged songs including “Icky Thump,” “Lazaretto,” “Ball and Biscuit,” “Steady, as She Goes” and “Seven Nation Army” from the April 11 performance in Indio. (setlist.fm) White arrived at Coachella after another nationally visible performance week. He had appeared on “Saturday Night Live” on April 4, and his public tour listings showed Coachella on April 11 before dates in Latvia and Poland in late May and early June. (setlist.fm) The result was a set that started as a schedule update and ended as part of the festival’s anniversary recap. For Coachella’s first weekend, White was not just an extra name on the bill; he became one of the moments other outlets kept circling back to. (latimes.com) (consequence.net)