The Raconteurs have been touring all summer in support of their long-awaited third album Help Us Stranger, released via Third Man Records. The band stopped in to New York earlier this year for a run of super intimate underplays to celebrate the release of the album, and returned this weekend for three much larger shows that saw them play two nights in Manhattan at Hammerstein Theatre (September 5th & 6th) and then one night in Brooklyn at Kings Theatre (September 7th).
We caught their performance at Kings Theatre, which like the rest of the proper tour dates featured no cell phones or photography at all. While this isn’t an ideal situation for most fans, there’s definitely something to this rule that allows for a true concert-going experience that allows the crowd to devote all of their attention to the band on stage. White loves this option and it worked just as well as it did when we saw him play at the very same venue last winter when he was touring in support of his latest solo album.
The band sounded even tighter than they did at those small underplays, having spent these past few months fine-tuning the new material like a well-oiled machine. They also gave us plenty of old favorites that sounded perfect alongside the material, and just as vital as ever. In fact, it was the run on new album single “Sunday Driver” that went into “Blue Veins,” that set the tone for the rest of the show. During the intro for the latter, Jack White got so into his performance, his energy carried him so frantic that he almost toppled over and nearly took out Brendan Benson along the way. They along with bassist Jack Lawrence, drummer Patrick Keeler, and multi-instrumentalist Dean Fertita, were so locked in that it was hard not to feed of off their frantic energy.
We went from not seeing The Raconteurs for nearly a decade to seeing them multiple times in the course of one summer. Who knows when we’ll see them next, but there’s a good chance they may be a popular item on the festival circuit next summer as well. Find the full setlist for their Kings Theatre performance posted below.
The Raconteurs setlist:
1. Salute Your Solution
2. Bored and Razed
3. Old Enough
4. Help Me Stranger
5. You Don’t Understand Me
6. Top Yourself
7. Summertime Blues (Eddie Cochran cover)
8. Top Yourself @Info[with ‘Give Me Back My Wig’ by Hound Dog Taylor snippet]
9. What’s Yours Is Mine
10. Only Child
11. Don’t Bother Me
12. Hands
13. Broken Boy Soldier
14. Shine the Light on Me
15. Now That You’re Gone
16. Sunday Driver
17. Blue Veins
Encore:
18. Consoler of the Lonely
19. Level
20. Somedays (I Don’t Feel Like Trying)
21. Carolina Drama
22. Steady, as She Goes
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