By: David Schultz

In a world where rock stars are becoming increasingly interchangeable commodities, Jack White has chiseled an unshakable reputation in stone. With his sister/ex-wife/third cousin, once removed Meg in tow, White has methodically worked his way from the underground clubs of Detroit, Michigan onto the cover of Rolling Stone with the Rolling Stones. Just in case he’s getting too much attention on his own, White has rejoined his don’t-call-it-a-side-project side project The Raconteurs for a summer tour that brought them back to New York City for three sold-out shows at Terminal 5. On the offhand chance there was still any debate on the subject, The Raconteurs shows established one simple fact: Jack White is a rock star, a flat-out, honest-to-God, bigger-than-life rock star.

A year ago, The Raconteurs – or The Saboteurs as far as our Australian readers are concerned - played an efficient one hour set at the Roseland Ballroom. Sounding gritty and raw, the show centered on their noteworthy debut album Broken Boy Soldiers. For their Saturday night Terminal 5 set, The Raconteurs moved well past the ninety minute mark playing, tapping into the electric blues maelstrom they unleashed on their recently released Consolers Of The Lonely.
At a White Stripes show, when he’s only accompanied by Meg on drums, White is essentially a one man inferno, prowling the stage and blowing audiences away with his charisma, energy and wild interpretations of traditional blues riffs. As a member of the Raconteurs, White still digs deep into the well of distorted blues rock, he just gets more help in rounding out the sound from bassist Jack Lawrence, drummer Patrick Keeler and guitarist Brendan Benson.

Amid the stylized curtains, unusually ornate sets, high-quality posters and identically dressed roadies, The Raconteurs seemed a little out of place within their own creation when they hit the stage in casual dress. If they’re trying to bring back Seventies style guitar-based power rock, they are doing it by bringing back the wild white-boy afros that went hand in hand with the genre. Packing arena-sized rock into the concert hall, Benson and The Greenhornes rhythm section played like they were an extension of Jack White, in tune with his penchant for electrified blues. At times they sounded a little like Black Sabbath, at others they had a touch of Robby Krieger-heavy Doors style and Keeler seemed to know the exact moment when the drumbeat from “My Doorbell” would accentuate what they were doing..

Even though their time together has been relatively short, The Racs played with veteran assurance. For “Steady As She Goes,” White and the boys set up the song as if they were leading into a classic rock powerhouse before delivering it like that’s exactly what it is. Benson and White traded lead vocals for most of the night with Benson’s sounding like a more measured and calm version of White’s excitable, often manic delivery. When they sing together, as they did on “Together,” they put forth a nice change of pace from the direct and incendiary rave ups of “Rich Kid Blues” and “Consolers Of The Lonely.”

With their opening set The Black Lips matched The Raconteurs for vintage sound, pushing the distortion levels to new highs. Heavy on garage style psychedelics, the Lips sounded a lot like a young version of The Who must have sounded in the early 60s, tearing off one fuzzy yet melodic riff after another. The only set that remained lacking was The Raconteurs encore, during which they seemed to have lost their focus. Lacking the same zip of the main set, they became mired down in plodding guitars. They did earn themselves a little bit of New York bo-ho credibility by bringing out Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs who came out to trade licks with White and Benson during “Broken Boy Soldier.”

Unlike the traditional lead-in to the many tours, The Raconteurs didn’t sow the seeds of expectation by recording an album and then letting anticipation build by making people wait for an arbitrary release date. Rather than let the tracks sit and wait for the inevitable leak, The Raconteurs moved while the iron was hot and got the new album out there. It hasn’t hurt them one bit and they may have created a blueprint for other bands to follow. After all, once the album is done, why let it sit for weeks when people could be listening to it? Then again, by now we should be used to going wherever Jack White leads.

Labels: Jack White, The Raconteurs