Birds Of Avalon has a set that blends together very seamlessly, interrupted only once when their lead singer, Craig Tilley, tosses fluttering plastic birds into the crowd pressed close to the stage. It’s the kind of gimmick that just doesn’t work when it’s planned – it’s really something better done as an afterthought in the middle of a song. Outside of that, there’s an obvious nod to the '70s with guitars held up to amplifiers and synchronized harmonies played by two Les Paul guitars – it looks like Cheetie and Paul have a lot of fun in those moments. The songs don’t really stand out that well from one another just yet (with the exception of “Earthbound”) and there’s an element of distance from the audience that happens when the only eye contact the band makes is with each other. They don’t necessarily engage the crowd, so they look a little tight. Granted, Denver on a Monday is kind of a drag and playing in front of the first third of an auditorium at 8pm can’t fill anybody with enthusiasm.

The Raconteurs come out, gather together, and take a bow before they even play a note – it’s very opposite from the opening with Birds of Avalon. They acknowledge the audience before they even play. This gets a roar from the crowd, who’ve all pressed in close now and Chris the German (who is 6’ 5” of show-obscuring fun and loves the new album) and me are suddenly hemmed in by:

1. Four teen-aged girls who have to take many pictures of themselves squealing and posing with beers for one or all of the social networking / public scrapbooking services they document themselves on.

2. A really nice guy who has tics so pronounced and dramatic that we at first mistake it for very sporadic dancing. A break between the 3rd and 4th songs reveals it as a condition I feel ugly about myself for being amused by.

3. Some no-account son-of-a-bitch whose flatulence wafts out every minute and a half. At first I thought somebody was smoking dog shit fermented in Hamm’s but a cramped look around revealed no smoking bowl, just a lot of equally disgusted faces with the anonymous saboteur undoubtedly among them. (The kill-zone on the best stinky doesn’t get out beyond the 3m mark.)

So we head further back after the 4th song to take it all in next to the sound guy and the dirty-filthy-thieving hippie couple who are dangerously close to the overly-developed meathead with the backwards baseball cap, brim straight back and unbent, who looks to be a little inhibited about applying a lot of Fred Durst moves to a lot of blues rock music.

No matter how much of a band The Raconteurs might be, nobody is going to upstage Jack White. It’s obvious that a lot of people came here to see him specifically as there was a loud howl from the crowd the very first time he approached the microphone. He exudes the kind of two-stepping confidence that rock ‘n roll is all about – “I know you’re watching for what I do next and I could give a shit but believe me, it’s going to be good”.

There’s a lot of interplay between himself and Brendan [Benson] on guitar that will come together later on during “Salute Your Solution”. Jack’s guitar has a much more raw edge to it but he doesn’t rely on it, having sat down to play the piano on the 3rd song and changing between electric and acoustic guitar for the more country-styled songs, including “Old Enough”.

Patrick Keeler, the drummer, is playing an enormous chrome-looking set that pounds through the PA and it seems as though this concert has gotten a lot louder since Birds of Avalon was playing. Jack Lawrence, the bassist, would almost be invisible on stage if he didn’t look like a strange cross between Geddy Lee and the librarian every fetishist adores.

They do a pretty good job of balancing slower numbers with the barnstormers and Jack plays the showmanship card on “Hold Up” and “Steady as She Goes” by retreating back to his amplifier, turning his back to the crowd and goofing with a bunch of effects – it keeps the crowd entertained. There comes a point, though, when there’s simply too much jam going on. And this, unfortunately, continues during the encore which builds so slowly that Chris the German and I leave to beat traffic. I couldn’t even tell you which song it was because there was just far too much noodling going on for the first four minutes. Seeing as the last song they played before the encore was another jam it felt more like an intermission than a good night.

-William Cadillac Donovan

The Raconteurs w/ Birds Of Avalon
Fillmore Auditorium. Denver, CO
April 28th, 2008

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