So Jack’s brought his vanity project, or side show as The Raconteurs have been described, to Bristol’s Colston Hall for the evening and by god is my girlfriend excited. More of that later – first up are support act Bigbang, they confused me slightly, very talented musicianship, but a bit of a one trick pony when it came to tunes, very, very 70’s,  I was half expecting a phone call from Free wanting their act back and I’m sure Lester Bangs was sat just in front of me writing a review.. 

Never mind, we came to see The Raconteurs – a combination of White Stripes front man (White), Brendan Benson (er, Brendan Benson) and Greenhornes rhythm section (Patrick Keeler and Jack Lawrence) The set was revealed moments before they came on and consisted of a massive very velvety back drop (which Trish reckoned would take loads of ironing) centring around a massive R and two rather nice lighting features on either side of the stage that looked like they were from Habitat or Ikea, shaped like upside down Eiffel towers. The stage was lit really nicely, not the usual rock gig darkness with flashing strobes more like they’d come to play in your living room and you’d left the big light on.

So to the music, well as you’d expect with a band that have only released one album (albeit a damned good one) the set didn’t last that long, probably 1 hour 20 minutes max they covered most of the album, starting with Intimate Secretary which they’d re-jigged a bit a managed to make it last about 10 minutes, they played Together, Store Bought Bones which sounded massive  and was also sort of a different live version to that of the album but all the better for it.

At one point in proceedings Jack White asked us all if we’d had a Sunday Roast before we came out, which I thought was jolly decent of him, apparently he’d had Turkey, so had the drummer, not sure about the midget bassist or Brendan though, maybe Brendan’s a vegetarian.  Jack also introduced the band, at which point very excited girlfriend (Kate) screamed the place down at the mere mention of Brendan Benson (she’s sure he looked at her as well) 

Anyway I digress The Raconteurs are a very well polished unit musically, I just think they suffer a little from only having the one album to draw from. This was most apparent when they started Broken Boy Soldier, which after 5 or 6 minutes turned into a cover of Nancy Sinatra’s Bang Bang, (better than the Audio Bully’s by they way), this lasted a good 10 minutes with Jack White sometimes wailing into the mic and then back into Broken Boy Soldier. Wow, now I was starting to get a bit of a headache but after Level, Yellow Sun and another cover I couldn’t place it was all over…  until the obligatory encore that is !  a brilliant version of Hands and an at first unrecognisable Steady As She Goes which had the Colston Hall going bonkers, girls dancing in the aisles no less ! 

So in Summary, good tunes, the Colston Hall is an excellent venue acoustically and The Raconteurs are a great band, but, and it’s just one but, however much Jack White maintains its not his side project you do get the feeling sometimes watching them he might as well be wearing a t-shirt saying “I’m Jack White and its all about me” .  It was pointed out to me that maybe he’s just more of an out and out showman than Brendan and Brendan’s happy to strum along whilst Jack whacks his guitar to within an inch of its life.  I still think he loves it all a bit too much though if you know what I mean..

by Rich