Last night on Saturday Night Live, Jack White swooped in and saved the day as a musical guest.

Originally country artist Morgan Wallen was set to perform but his performance was canceled after Wallen didn’t properly obey COVID-19 safety protocols. He publicly apologized but since he was restricted from playing SNL, Jack White stepped in. With legendary musician Eddie Van Halen passing away earlier this week due to throat cancer, Jack White saw this as an opportunity to honour him. During the night he used a blue custom Eddie Van Halen model guitar.

i thought it could be a nice gesture for me to use this blue eddie van halen model guitar for one of the songs tonight…

Posted by Jack White on Saturday, October 10, 2020

While playing “Lazaretto” with the custom guitar, at about the 2:45 mark Jack White goes into some guitar tapping as another nod to Van Halen. You can watch the performance below.

In his opening performance he played his Beyoncé collaboration “Don’t Hurt Yourself” and then transitioned into “Ball and Biscuit”. Except he put a spin on it by using some lyrics from “Jesus is Coming Soon”, a song by Blind Willie Johnson about the Spanish Flue. The lyrics relate pretty closely to the current situation as he sang “the great disease was mighty and the people were sick everywhere. It was an epidemic, it floated through the air.” You can watch the full performance below!

Jack White has been pretty busy with the release of the Third Man Triplegraph guitar pedal and the upcoming White Stripes greatest-hits compilation. This will be the very first time that the band is releasing a greatest-hits set, and it will be out next month, in December.

Filed under: jack white, Saturday Night live, SNL