Jack White performed with Loretta Lynn in Nashville

It's been a decade since Jack White decided to leave his native Detroit and make his home in Nashville, and it's hard to overstate the impact that move had on Music City's national image. For many outside of Tennessee, the rock musician setting up shop here was their first hint that Nashville was a place where all kinds of music and culture — "not just country" — could thrive.

Now, as the city's profile hits new peaks, White is scaling new heights, too. On Wednesday, he played his biggest Nashville concert to date: a nearly sold-out gig at Bridgestone Arena. It was an evening packed with special guests, surprises and singular moments that could only happen here; moments that acknowledged Music City's past, present and future.

One moment stood high above the rest: White and country legend Loretta Lynn shared the stage for the first time in years.

11 years ago, he produced her Grammy-winning album "Van Lear Rose." As they traded lines on that album's "Portland, Oregon," the pair seemed to pick up right where they left off.

"I'm glad you didn't have nothing better to do tonight," White told her. "I called Loretta up the other day, and I said, 'Hello?' and she said (in a gruff voice), 'Hello.' I said, 'This is Jack White looking for Loretta Lynn.' She said, 'This is Loretta, baby. Did you like how I disguised my voice?'"

Lynn chuckled. "You're awful," she said.

White explained that he'd proposed that they play one of Lynn's very first recordings, "Whispering Sea."

"When I asked her if we could do 'Whispering Sea,' she says, 'OK, let's do it, baby. I ain't sung it since I wrote it.'"

White's sporadic supergroup The Raconteurs also made a surprise appearance, taking the stage together for the first time in more than three years — though White's drummer Daru Jones performed in place of Patrick Keeler. After their two songs, members Brendan Benson and Jack Lawrence joined the rest of White's band to back up Lynn.

At one point, White noted that everyone sharing the stage with him now called Nashville home.

Some of his collaborators — like multi-instrumentalist Fats Kaplin — are longtime locals, while Jones only recently moved here from Brooklyn. The ensemble also took a moment to remember their former comrade, keyboard player Isaiah "Ikey" Owens, who died while on tour with White in Mexico last year. White stopped a song in its tracks, and a single organ note rang out for several beats.

That was a rare quiet moment. From the moment the stage curtains opened, White and his five fellow musicians came out swinging. The first two songs, "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" and "High Ball Stepper," were surrounded on all sides by thunderous rock crescendos, guitar squeals and feedback, with the stage awash in White's signature blue lights.

"Are we in this together?" White shouted as the band roared on. It wasn't just small talk. 10 minutes before showtime, one of his representatives emerged from behind the curtain to ask the crowd to put their phones away during the show. Their wish was that the crowd would take in the performance with their own eyes, instead of through a screen. For the next two hours, there was barely a moment to look down, anyway.

White was on stage for two hours, and he spent maybe a minute total standing still. Both during and between songs, he ricocheted around the stage, leaning into his band members, raising his guitar neck to send signals to Jones and calling out audibles. Then he'd turn to the crowd, imploring them to clap along and join him on a refrain, or leaning back to take in the applause. It was reminiscent of his commanding set at last year's Bonnaroo, and his skills have sharpened since then.

Lynn received a hero's welcome when she took the stage for her opening set, and a standing ovation when she waved goodnight (for the first time). Chances are good that quite a few attendees were seeing the country legend for the first time — and perhaps a sea of young, fist-pumping fans was a special thing for Lynn to see, too.

"Bless your hearts," she told them after taking a seat a few songs in.

She told the crowd to holler out whatever songs they wanted her to sing, and true to her word, she and her band would launch right into "You Ain't Woman Enough (To Take My Man)" or "The Pill." Lynn occasionally had to sit out a few lines of a verse or chorus — "My nose is running like a freight train," she explained — but the 82-year-old's voice was in fine form.

Bridgestone was a very big room for lifelong Nashvillian William Tyler, who was personally invited by White to open the evening. In the middle of the guitarist's set of serene, atmospheric instrumentals, he told the crowd it was "an insane honor" to be playing before White and Lynn.

"I've lived here my whole life, and this is maybe the most surreal experience I've ever had," he said before his final number. "So thank you for being a part of it."