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Taken from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Aug 14, 2019)
Jack White goes wild with The Raconteurs at Stage AE
Band's first show here in 11 years allows former White Stripe to roam and shred.
by Scott Mervis (EMail)
Jack White goes wild with The Raconteurs at Stage AE. PhotoCredit: Stephanie Strasburg/Post-Gazette |
When the clock struck 9 Tuesday night, Jack White leaped on stage like it was finally his turn at the bouncy house.
For the better part of the next 100 minutes, he was a manic blur of squealing guitar and wild, distorted vocals.
This was particularly amusing to me given that I had just read the Pitchfork review of the latest Raconteurs record that tossed out phrases like "limp effort," "air of timidity" and "competent, workmanlike."
On Tuesday at Stage AE, it was more like "rock 'n' roll animal."
Coinciding with "Help Us Stranger," the band's first album in 11 years, this was the first Raconteurs show here since the band played an afternoon set at the New American Music Union festival on the South Side in 2008. The Raconteurs is one of four different live repertoires for White, the Detroit-raised, Nashville rocker, who started in The White Stripes and has since released three solo albums, three with this band, and three with The Dead Weather.
PhotoCredit: Stephanie Strasburg/Post-Gazette |
Consider it proof that you get a lot done when you don't own a smartphone. The crowd didn't have them either Tuesday night, per White's insistence that they be sealed in Yondr pouch upon entry. It may have given people jitters or sweats, but, all in all, it seemed to be a good thing, focusing our full attention on the stage, while removing the annoying glows of people shooting really bad video that they'll delete the next day.
Co-fronting the band with his more steady singer-guitarist friend Brendan Benson allows White to be even more of a wild card than he usually is, free to jump in and out of the vocals and fly off on crazy solos with his super-charged effects.
Aside from Benson's more conventional vocals, The Raconteurs isn't a big departure from White's brand of bluesy garage-rock -- or garage-y blues rock. The songs ranged from spastic bursts ("Don't Bother Me," "Live a Lie," "Bored and Razed") to heavy, bluesy stomps ("Now That You're Gone," "Level"), all of them capable of erupting into a noisy explosion at any moment.
The midtempo songs in between had their own surprises. "Somedays (I Don't Feel Like Trying)" started like a Skynyrd ballad before morphing into what sounded like a lost track from side two of "Abbey Road." "You Don't Understand Me" flowed in the vein of jangly Jayhawks, with White behaving on the harmonies. "Broken Boy Soldier," which closed the 11-song first set (before the eight-song encore), rattled along like Zeppelin in psych mode.
Benson's acoustic rocker "Only Child" was presented as a song, White said, to let them "regain our breath." He was so impressed that the crowd sang along -- "they know the song, Brendan!" he chimed in -- that he promised to give Pittsburgh a little extra at the end. Which he seemed to do.
Earlier, White stopped to explain his Bat-"BURGH" T-shirt, worn "just for you, Pittsburgh."
"I only have a few regrets in my life," he began, joking that "a few of those are children." (At least we hope he was joking.)
"One of those regrets," he continued, "is that Christopher Nolan asked me to play the National Anthem in 'The Dark Knight,' " which was filmed partly in the stadium White was looking at from the stage.
PhotoCredit: Stephanie Strasburg/Post-Gazette |
He struggled with the decision for a week, White said, before concluding, "I can't do it, because Jimi Hendrix owns that, and I respect him too much."
There was a lot of Jimi running through The Raconteurs set, especially in the show-stopping slow-burner "Blue Veins." At first, it meandered like the Grateful Dead doing "Drums/Space" (drummer Patrick Keeler is beast, we should point out) before building to a screaming, shredding throwdown of a solo that the album version didn't deliver.
Based on setlist.fm, the previous show, in Indianapolis on Monday, ended on that note. On Tuesday, The Raconteurs followed with their irresistible breakout song, "Steady, As She Goes," White turning into an exuberant up-and-down sing-along with the crowd.
Heading to the gate to liberate our cellphones from the pouch, you couldn't help but think about the four other Raconteurs and wonder, "What is this guy like to BE AROUND all day, every day?"
RACONTEURS SET LIST
Bored and Razed
Level
Old Enough
You Don't Understand Me
Don't Bother Me
Somedays (I Don't Feel Like Trying)
Top Yourself
>Live a Lie
Together
Help Me Stranger
Broken Boy Soldier
Encore:
Hey Gyp (Dig the Slowness)
Consoler of the Lonely
Only Child
Shine the Light on Me
Sunday Driver
Now That You're Gone
Blue Veins
Steady, As She Goes
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