Review: Is this The Raconteurs tour better than the White Stripes?

June 10, 2008

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The air was heavy with expectation when I arrived at the Kool Haus on Thursday night. There was just one person everyone wanted to see. The man, the myth, the legend, White Stripes frontman Jack White was in town with his so-called "side-project," The Raconteurs who are more creative, more talented and musically superior side-project. I know White Stripes fans may be cursing me right about now, but if The Raconteurs’ albums didn’t convince you, Thursday night’s rock-solid performance would have.

When White finally came on stage around 9:30 p.m. he didn’t even pause to acknowledge the ecstatic applause from the audience. He just grabbed his guitar and the band launched immediately into "Consoler Of The Lonely," the title track on the band’s latest record. Band leader Brendan Benson immediately stole the show. He easily held his own against White’s immense guitar talents, delivered pitch-perfect vocals and maintained all the enjoyable emotionality evident on Consolers.

While he sang "Consoler Of The Lonely," Benson not only sounded bored as he crooned the climactic, "and I’m bored to tears…," but also sounded really pissed about it. We’re talking in the skilled acting way, not the genuinely lame way.

Meanwhile, White cavorted around the stage in between vocals, and stomped and careened along with his scathing guitar work. He looked like he just came from auditioning for an Edward Scissorhands sequel In his signature black T-shirt and pale, pale skin. And from the way he shredded his guitar over the course of the night, he may as well have had knives for fingers. The thing was practically bleeding by the time he finished with it.

The band stuck to their new material for the first half of the set. White took over the vocals for "Hold Up," before he handed the reins back to Benson for the country/blues masterpiece "The Switch And The Spur," which can’t be fully appreciated until you’ve seen it live.

One of the evening’s highlights was when White laid down his guitar and moved to the keyboard for "You Don’t Understand Me" and proved he’s no one-instrument wonder. Even the drunken frat guys behind me were moved by his playing. "Jack White is just SO fucking cool!" one exclaimed, and his buddy offered "No one else can play that good and still be the sickest cat in town." Sick, indeed.

White also worked several different microphones and a scratch table to create the interesting distortion and layering effects that make the band’s sound so unique.

Although the crowd responded enthusiastically to every song, Benson said little and White didn’t speak at all until a few songs later, when he finally greeted the crowd with the cheery couplet "We don’t scare easily, we’re The Raconteurs from Nashville, Tennessee," before launching into "Level," from 2006’s Broken Boy Soldiers.

The band calmed things down a bit with another Soldiers track, the frustrated love song "Together," before bringing the energy back up with a frenetic version of "Broken Boy Soldier."

Benson and White seem most at home when they come together on stage, dueling guitars style, goading each other on to more raw and intricate playing. After a crowd-pleasing rendition of "Steady As She Goes," they seemed to create a near five-minute bridge of raw rock noise out of thin air, which eventually descended into early-blues homage "Blue Veins." This was by far the evening’s high point. The band seemed content to continue playing the track all night, and fleshed it out with solos and extended bridges that floored the crowd.

While everyone seemed to be there for White, by the end of the night it was impossible to only focus on him after seeing all the talent the band offer. As leader, Benson provides a perfect foil to White’s rock star notoriety and stage antics. Benson stood at the microphone, slightly stooped over his low-slung guitar, and shook his head in time to the music. It contrasted perfectly with White’s stage posturing and ultimately begged the question: Who’s the sickest cat in town now?