“I like getting hipped to shows from artists I admire dearly but never got to see live, like The White Stripes.”

the choruses); and 3) the all-in, all-together-now teamwork of “Blood Brothers,” from July 1, 2000 in New York, New York, on Songs of Friendship (seven minutes of long-entrenched E Street Band intuition at work—“let’s go!”). All of them feel perfectly poignant in the pandemic era.

I also like getting hipped to shows from artists I admire dearly but never got to see live, like The White Stripes (though I did see a Jack White solo show at Roseland in NYC on May 21, 2012). Thankfully, I got up to speed on exactly where to dive in, thanks to the finely detailed nugs.net Blog posts of Ben Blackwell, The White Stripes’ official archivist. Though I did have to pony up a few extra bucks to download Stripes shows, after hearing their seminal gig at Dionysus at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio on September 16, 2000 in 24-bit/192khz MQA, I didn’t mind the added freight.

The mindmeld between the always visionary guitarist/ vocalist Jack White and his then-significant other, the ever-underrated drummer Meg White, is beyond palpable on Oberlin tracks like the twisted blues of “Your Southern Can Is Mine” (dig the echo on Jack’s all-too-brief lead vocal), the vicious crunch of “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” (Meg’s insistent cymbal rides), and the quite gnarly “One More Cup of Coffee” (Jack’s mighty stabs of guitar feedback and off-mic squeals). After a few repeat listens, I must confess to now having a severe case of LSE (Live Stripes Envy).

I also sampled (and hoarded) additional live wares from the likes of Widespread Panic, Wilco, and My Morning Jacket—and like fine, er, wine, these bands only get better and jammier with age. I could go on and on (as I’m wont to do), but you get the idea. Collecting bootlegs has long been a hallowed practice for many a music fan, and also one that often draws a fine line between being a collector and an audiophile at the same time. Thanks to the hi-res quality available for the breadth of live content to be found all throughout the open vaults on nugs.net, you may never cue up a scratchy old bootleg LP again.