Led reluctantly by Jack White, the Raconteurs rock the tent
Reprinted from late editions of yesterday's Globe.
Every so often it helps to be reminded of the exhilarating, communal power of rock 'n' roll. A few months back the Drive-By Truckers served notice at the Paradise; Tuesday night the Raconteurs tore it up at the
A tremendous, emotional guitar solo, a spleen-busting vocal, and a gut-punching rhythm section can all be temporarily transformative when they're played at the intersection of skill and abandon, as they were for a nearly packed house over a taut 90 minutes Tuesday night. The audience also spoke to the band's big tent appeal: hipsters, biker-types, noodle dancers spanning a wide age range, thrilled by the new version of classic rock brimming from the band's two albums: "Broken Boy Soldiers" and the recent "Consolers of the Lonely."
While Jack White of the White Stripes aims to be just another member of the quartet - bumped up nicely to a quintet with the addition of a touring keyboardist - it was hard for him not to attract the focus. The band most assuredly works as a whole, but White's prodigious fretwork and charismatic singing - from down-and-dirty blues shouts to cooing pop melodies - demands a spotlight even if he doesn't court it openly.
Whether it was the cheeky, nonsensical fast-talk of "Keep It Clean," the serpentine riffage of "Level," or the plaintive piano intro of "You Don't Understand Me," White was in top form, moving with his comrades from humor to pathos, heavy metal to heavy melancholy with a perfect balance of inspiration and perspiration.
Co-lead singer Brendan Benson was certainly no slouch, matching White with a fusillade of his own controlled guitar pyrotechnics and offsetting his gruffer partner with a clean, sweet croon on tunes like "Old Enough" and "Steady, As She Goes."
The band ended the set with a transcendent workout of "Blue Veins" that began in a narcotized haze, built to a greasily thunderous stomp, and peaked with a solo from White that swung wildly from ecstatic to despairing in a tangle of high-pitched squeals wrung from his guitar neck. White shouted like he was trying to exorcise sound itself in service of the desperate devotion of the song's protagonist to the girl who rescued him from the abyss. It was a dramatic close to the regular set, and the moment we had to leave to make our deadline.
The finale was equally enthralling according to a source left inside - "Carolina Drama," a fitting capper to an invigorating night. Garage rockers the Black Lips opened with a set long on scruffy charm but sorely short on proper sound mix.
