Seeing The Raconteurs at the Masonic Temple.

Hello, friends! Happy Monday to you all! I had such a wonderful time visiting my family, but I am back home in Traverse City now. Back to routine!

I feel like I say “This blog post is so different from my usual ones…”, a whole lot, but I do think that this one truly is! I went to see The Raconteurs with my mom and brother on Saturday night, and I wanted to write a blog post all about it! It does terrify me a bit doing so, because I don’t want people who know much more about music than I do to get mad, haha. I’m not a music review blog, so if you’ve stumbled upon my blog on the search for professional music critiques… I might look elsewhere.

The first band that came on stage was The Stools. I had never heard of them before, but by the end of their set, I was definitely a fan. It seemed to me that they were very influenced by punk music, and they had almost a rockabilly vibe to them. They gave me major Dead Milkmen vibes.

The next band that came on stage was The Hentchmen. I enjoyed their set a whole lot as well. They were also very influenced by punk music, I found. They also heavily featured the organ, so I was, of course, a fan of that.

And then… The Raconteurs!!!

Now, here are my top three favorite songs that The Raconteurs played. Together, Consoler of the Lonely, and the finale, Steady as She Goes.

Together is probably my favorite Raconteurs song. They prefaced the song by mentioning that they wrote it in a very hot attic, much like the state of the venue that night. It’s possibly one of the sweetest songs I’ve ever heard. I had a thoroughly wonderful time swaying my little heart out to this song.

“You wrote our names down on the sidewalk / but the rain came and washed them off / so we should write them again on wet cement / so people a long time from now will know what we meant.”

Consoler of the Lonely is another one of my favorite songs by The Raconteurs. And their performance of it certainly did it justice, making it all the more rockin’. I’m a horrendous dancer, but this song definitely had me bopping and jumping all over the place.

“Haven’t had a decent meal / my brain is fried / haven’t slept a week for real / my tongue is tied.”

And Steady as She Goes… Oh my GOODNESS. A song that is wonderful always, but holy cow, was this performance absolutely fantastic. First off, the lights. The lights for the whole show were wonderful, but they were SO cool for this song. They just went wild, all over the place. This song had me jumping and screamin’ up a storm. Towards the end of the song, Jack White really had the crowd getting involved with it, having us repeat, “Are ya steady now?” over and over, building up for the end of the song. SO good.

“Find yourself a girl / and settle down / live a simple life / in a quiet town.”

What made this concert different than other concerts that I’ve been to is that there were NO cellphones allowed. When you went through the door, you were to put your phone into a bag that had a special lock that only unlocked using a piece of technology they had OR a designated area, where you could unlock it. Which was a really interesting thing and I personally found it to make the experience even better. HOWEVER. Some people did not agree with me, and managed to unlock theirs and come back and attempt to record the show. Those working security did not tolerate this. The gentleman next to me was one such person. He ended up being escorted out of the concert, reasonably angry wife in tow.. I shudder thinking what their car ride home was like…

Writing this post has made me realize I probably wouldn’t be the best music journalist or anything of the like, but goodness gracious, was it a great concert. Thank you so much to my mom’s friend, Jon, for getting us the tickets! It was an absolute blast.

Thank you so much for reading!

XOXO,

Mattie Mae