Jack White sits in with the Hentchmen as Hamtramck's free Labor Day fest turns 44

The Hamtramck Labor Day Festival returned for its 44th run over the long weekend, three free days of music along Joseph Campau Avenue between Caniff and Carpenter. The festival is volunteer-run and admission is free, a setup the organizers have kept in place for decades. The street fills with two stages of live music, a carnival, food vendors drawn from the city's restaurants, wrestling, a parade, and the long-running races down Jos. Campau, per the festival's own site.

The closing night drew the most attention. Festival organizers announced that Jack White would join the Hentchmen, his old Detroit garage band, for a short set on the South Stage Monday night. In the festival's words, carried in the announcement, White would step on stage "for a few songs." The band had a full slot of its own; White's part was billed as brief.

The connection runs back to 1998, when White played bass on the Hentchmen's album "Hentch-Forth," released that year before the White Stripes made him a national name. His label, Third Man Records, reissued the record on vinyl in 2017 as an extended edition, its first vinyl pressing in nearly two decades (per Third Man Records and Consequence).

The rest of the weekend leaned on Detroit and a few touring acts. The lineup included Detroit rappers Sada Baby, Esham, Bruiser Wolf, and Gmac Cash, Nashville's Be Your Own Pet, Canadian rock band Sloan, and Mike Skill of the Romantics, alongside Hamtramck regulars filling out both stages.

Festival chairman Konrad Maziarz framed the appeal in plain terms. "We're so proud that our festival is still around, and free, and volunteer-run," Maziarz told Fox 2 Detroit. "It's a lot of work to put on but we can't imagine any other way to celebrate all the weird and wonderful cultural and artistic achievements of Hamtramck."

That mix is the point. A few blocks of one of the densest, most diverse small cities in the country, run by its own residents, handed over for a weekend to whoever shows up to play and eat and ride the carnival. A surprise sit-in from one of Detroit's best-known musicians fits the format rather than overwhelming it.