I would like to say that this show was the best of 2019 that I’ve been to, but I may be lying. It’s at least tied with the Jim James show I went to not too long ago. Had it been at a different venue, like Showbox or Paramount it would likely be the best but hey, we work with what we get! And that being said WAMU sounded great and I was able to clearly see everything as opposed to my last show so it was a win all around.
For this one I begged Alyssa to go with me as I really wanted her to get into the Raconteurs. She’s not a big fan of Jack White, so after giving some songs a listen she still decided that I should give these away to someone who would really appreciate the show. Cody (who plays bass in my band) had recently really gotten into the Raconteurs and in fact all of Jack White’s material so I offered up the pricy tickets his way. $70 is a grip but I felt it was well worth seeing the Raconteurs perform live. Cody paid me the money and then I found out Jake Flatt and Michael Gill were going to be going as well so we devised a plan of all meeting up at the Central Saloon and then walking the rest of the way.
After my last show getting too wasted I took it slower this time. Cody and I had a beer or so at Chop Suey then ubered the rest of the way to have a few at Central. By the time we got to WAMU I was feeling good but not overly good. A cool thing about this show was a lot like the last Jack White show I came to…no cell phones! As disheartening as that is for my little blog here, it made for a way better concert experience. No annoying hands in the air or hands in my face.
We headed to the beer garden section and had some beers there while the opener played in the background. I wasn’t too interested in her to be honest as it was little more blue grassy or country than I’m into. Her name was Lillie Mae I believe? Not to say that it was bad, in fact everything sounded “good”. It just wasn’t my thing.
After she played we drank a few more and in fact tried to make it outside for a smoke break but unfortunately no luck. It’s a good thing too though because The Raconteurs started playing and we rushed back in. I went all the way to the little reserved handicap “cage” area and stood there. Wasn’t much of a crowd and had an awesome spot to see the band play. Don’t worry I wasn’t blocking any handicap people, we were outside the area.
What makes a concert like this so great is that I knew every song. That happens rarely for me, probably because I go to a lot of shows. Nevertheless I’m always excited when it happens, and the fact that they only have 3 albums probably helps. Concsoler’s of the Lonely was an album I wore out back in 2010 when my first band started and the fact that the Raconteurs kicked off with Salute your Solution really helped kick off a great concert experience for me.
From that they went into a wide berth of all their hits. Bored and Razed from their new album, to the Level from their first. Jack and Brendan seemed to have great chemistry on stage although it was clear that Jack is the conductor on stage. Consistently letting everyone what to do next, changing guitars, jumping on keyboard and then back to guitar. And absolutely SHREDDING if I might add.
Thank God Cody came, because about 8 songs in Jake and Michael left to go party somewhere else. Even if Cody didn’t come though I would have stayed as I had been looking forward to this show forever.
Some of the highlights of the show were surprisingly the slower songs. Only Child really sounded good. And the piano parts of Shine the Light on Me really really sounded great. Don’t Bother Me didn’t really translate that well live, which was the only occurrence of all the songs that’s I noticed that didn’t sound as good as the recorded version.
The real highlight though was the super long encore. 6 songs, which included Help Me Stranger and Sunday Driver that I had been waiting on all night to hear. By this point I had already ran off to the march booth super quickly to buy a shirt and a poster so I definitely looked like a fanboy standing there with all of my mercy in hand. Once they started playing Steady as She Goes I knew the show was over, so we headed out, unlocked our phones, called an uber, and were on our way back. We were both thrilled beyond belief at the show we had just seen.
In closing, I truly feel Raconteurs is one of th great current rock bands and highly suggest you catch them live if you have a chance. Below is a snippet of one of my favorite songs of theirs live.