Alternative
The Raconteurs played together again on Saturday night, in the encore of a Jack White show at the Truth, a new venue in Nashville. All four were there: White, Brendan Benson, Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler, who also drums in White’s live band.
They played five songs: “Steady, As She Goes”, “Hands”, “Level”, “Broken Boy Soldier” and “Carolina Drama”. The first four are from “Broken Boy Soldiers”, the 2006 debut; the last one closes “Consolers of the Lonely” (2008). It was White’s second night at the venue and no phones were allowed, so the footage going around comes from photographer David James Swanson.
Earlier that day White had hinted at it on Instagram: “Inside info for any Raconteurs fans in the Nashville area…you might want to buy a ticket for Jack White’s show at The Truth tonight…there just might be a little surprise.”
The last time they had played was December 2019, in Honolulu, at the end of the tour for “Help Us Stranger”, their third album. This month Third Man Records announced the seventieth package of its Vault club: “Broken Boy Soldiers XX”, twenty-three tracks of which twenty-two are unreleased, with demos, outtakes and the band’s first-ever concert, recorded in Liverpool on 20 March 2006. It is three LPs and subscriptions close on 31 October.
No further band dates have been announced.
Text by Marçal Bonastre