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Review: The Raconteurs at Stubb’s
They love vibing off Led Zeppelin’s blues-rock stomp, garagey guitar noise and arena-ready songs because they can play to the cheap seats without falling into too much cliché. The arrangements on their new album, “Consolers of the Lonely,” feels too slick and fussy by half (not to mention that it’s mastered way too loudly). But their show at Stubb’s, which stripped back the songs to their chunky essence, was a wonderful argument for the band recording its next album live in the studio. The Raconteurs have an actual working mojo. (It doesn’t hurt that cameras were filming a documentary — posterity is always a good reason to play one’s best.)
And it is a band. Here, Brendan Benson plays the curly haired frontman while letting professional oddball Jack White be the guitarist with mystique (who happens to sing a whole mess of the songs). The White Stripes’ devotion to primitivism, which began to abate around “Seven Nation Army,” has always been a partial mask for just how good a player White is - he brings a fire to solos that could sound dull in the hands of people who treat the blues too reverently.
In front of a thrilled, might-as-well-have been-sold-out crowd, the band, augmented with a keyboard/fiddle player, tore into the new album’s title track and “You Don’t Understand Me,”. On the latter, White reminded the crowd that a hard-strummed acoustic buried in the mix forces the band to swing that much harder.
The fiddle-driven“Old Enough” and “Top Yourself” roared with a fire absent from the band’s studio efforts, while a new blues let White cut loose. “These Stones Will Shout” and “Steady, As She Goes” were crowd faves, while “Carolina Drama,” a ballad in many chapters, perhaps benefited the most from the absence of production butter.
Pulling off a rock smart and swaggering in equal measure is not easy. Wish I had gone both nights.
(Jack White performs with the Raconteurs Friday night at Stubb’s. Photo by Tammy Perez/For AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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By David
May 5, 2008 1:40 PM | Link to this
Friday night was amazing….Broken Boy Soldier and Blue Veins…I think EPIC describes it best! Absolutely amazing! Ending the show with Carolina Drama was just icing on the cake.
By Bev Mathews
May 6, 2008 12:37 PM | Link to this
I went both nights in Nashville and plan to for both nights in Detroit and then Columbus in June. I can’t wait. So, I know how you feel. Last time two nights in a row in Chicago.
Great band. Great album(s); it gets better each time. Can’t beat them or JACK WHITE LIVE.
By Justin
May 7, 2008 6:59 PM | Link to this
Hmm… To the article’s author, Joe, I disagree with most of your criticisms, but the one I’ll mention is this: I’m pretty sure they didn’t play “These Stones Will Shout” on either Friday or Saturday. And on Friday, they didn’t play “You Don’t Understand Me” second, they played “Attention” following “Consolers of the Lonely” and then “Level” was third…then “You Don’t Understand Me” came fourth.. And Jack played piano on that track, not acoustic guitar. You were there, right?