In the Presence of Greatness

Last Night we made it down to Stubb's BBQ (recently listed as one of the Top 5 music venues in the country by Rolling Stone) to check out The Raconteurs. It was night two of their local double-nighter and we are very happy we decided to shell out the $4o it cost to see them.

In case you are unfamiliar with The Raconteurs, their lead guitar player and co-front man is Jack White. As in Jack White of The White Stripes, as in Jack White the most talented musician in the world. If you couldn't tell by that last statement, we're big fans of the dude. He is a virtuoso plain and simple, and we were able to see him in all his glory last night, from about 30 feet away.

We are enormous fans of The White Stripes, owning each of their six albums, but have never been able to see them live. Last year when they were scheduled to visit our hometown, Meg freaked-out over her sex tape errrrrr, I mean she "got sick" and they were forced to cancel. This upset us greatly, because we had seen Jack as a Raconteur, two years ago following their debut album at a festival, but had come away less than thrilled. For one reason it was scorching hot and we were far from the stage, but mostly because we just didn't like their music much. Funny thing was, it didn't really seem like Jack did either. He was off to the side of the stage and quiet, in time between songs and in body language, seemingly content to just kick-ass on his Gretsch.

So we had decided to be huge White Stripes fans and just blame the whole Raconteurs thing on the other four guys. This was until their new album, Consolers of the Lonely dropped last month. A local radio station played a few tracks the first day of release, we heard them, and immediately jumped on iTunes, bang bang bang. To be honest there are a few of the 14 tracks that we don't really care for but more than half are good and we'd go as far to say that five are great, with two -- Carolina Blues and Solute Your Solution being classics. So despite our lackluster introduction to The Raconteurs, we like them now and felt compelled to check them out last night.

As good as the new album is, it really gives the band no justice. The concert was incredible!!! They were so good and Jack White is more of a phenomenon than we had even imagined. We are music lovers and have been to hundreds of concerts, and we dare say, that last night was top five. It sounds stupid and blasphemous but we're going to go ahead and call the Raconteurs, Zeppelinesque. The way they take a blues and country influence and make it the outline for their music and then melt your face off with screaming rock-n-roll brings nobody to my mind but Led Zeppelin. Add to it that Jack White's screeching voice has a little Plant in it and his ability to dominate a guitar without dominating a song has a whole lot of Page in it, and the comparison is inevitable.

Having the high profile that we do, we at The No-Look, No-Catch meet celebrities all the time. It kind of goes with the territory, and so we are rarely starstruck. But we were last night. Jack White was THE MAN. He was a true front man, a presence, and what rang true most was that he looked like he was having the time of his life. With a constant grin, he joked with his band and spoke with the crowd as if he was at home with friends. In a day of manufactured and manicured stardom it was refreshing to be in the presence of sheer talent, and even more refreshing that the talented individual had embraced his talent and was having a blast sharing it with others.