The Raconteurs @Tower Records, May 18th

This past Tuesday, the Raconteurs CD came out. Tower Records announced that with the purchase of the CD, they would give away a bracelet that would allow free entry to the instore performance the following Thursday (tonight). Apparently people lined up at the crack of dawn in the rain for these bracelets. I went down during my late lunch break (2:30ish?) and managed to grab one hassle free, in the Yellow Sun. And the clerk who assisted me with my purchase insisted on putting on the bracelet at the store to deter scalpers, I suppose, but happily, I could slide it off quite easily once on Broadway so I didn't have to look like a total loser.

So, tonight after a brilliant kung fu class, I walked the block and a half up from Temple to Tower and got in line with the rest of the herd. Julie1 was able to grab a bracelet too after I told her I got one so late in the day, so she came and joined me in line.

I had never been to an instore at Tower before. They pushed all the CD racks somewhere else and had a raised platform for the band. The place was crammed with mostly hipster types, including this one who Julie had the misfortune of standing behind. He wore this dirty wool cap that reaked. I mean, c'mon, man, it's fucking mid-May already! So many people played the photographer tonight. So many friggin' digital cameras!

The Racs started promptly at 10pm. Jack White, Brendan Benson, and those two other guys. Yeah, them. They had some sound issues -- the amps weren't really kicking it -- so the first 3 songs were almost a capella, with a distant acoustic guitar strumming. They took a short break to resolve the issues, and returned to the stage in full gear. And it was awesome. You never have to expect anything less than ROCK!!! when Jack White is involved.

They ended up playing about 9 songs, and considering the CD itself is like 11 songs, that was pretty nice. I had hoped to catch them at the impossible Irving Plaza show last month, but this was a nice alternative.

Side note -- I asked Bharat if he wanted to pop down to Tower with me on Tuesday, and I had told him that the Racs were Jack White's new project. He adamantly said, Oh I don't like him. So I said suit yourself and left. When I returned and said I thought you loved the White Stripes, he finally realized he had thought I had meant Jack Black....whoops! Yeah, verrrrry different...