The Nashville Feed

After spending most of this decade watching the Black Keys shred on their home turf before sold-out Ohio crowds, their inaugural Ryman performance begged the question, "Are they big enough to fill this place?"

Empty seats scattered among the pews hardly mattered - the Akron duo slowly poured out a bottle of Buckeye State blues, powering through brisk, compact set.

A few extended blues jams that never last long enough to turn stale broke up the march through the Keys's short, sweet songs. A duo immediately has more space to fill than a standard band, yet Auerbach and Carney had no trouble knowing when to bring the heavy lumber or to let the songs breathe a little.

These two possess a completely different dynamic than the White Stripes, to whom they're often compared. While they certainly share influences and Rust Belt credentials, the groups diverge quickly. To begin with, Carney can actually play the drums.

Auerbach's swampy, distorted blues paddles around the uptight cliches white guys usually summon from the blues. While the strobe lights got old within a few songs, Auerbach and Carney let their affable yet unyielding music ring out.

Thanks to a Danger Mouse production on Attack & Release, the new songs really stood out - "Things Ain't What They Used to Be" and the set-closing "I Got Mine" sacrificed nothing in stretching their blues away from its traditional song structures. They lined up nicely with "Your Touch" from Magic Potion and others.

At times Auerbach's stack of amplifiers strained against the Ryman acoustics, but their reliance on three-minute songs never allowed it to become a glaring flaw. His banter often felt forced, and they practically ran offstage at the encore's end. But once his slide hit the fretboard and Carney laid down a Bonham-esque bed of percussion, all was forgiven.

Royal Bangs provided a break from the standard indie rock opener, veering from Sonic Youth-inspired noise outbursts to keyboard-heavy fare reminiscent of the Boo Radleys at times.

As for Jessco White the Dancing Outlaw ... for all the people who said not to miss him, I wish I had. Thanks to a PBS documentary, the audience got a half-hour of tap-dancing to stock country tunes while Jessco rubbed his man-boobs and raving drunkenly toward the front row. In comparison, Daniel Johnston is a pillar of mental stability. I really wanted to root for him, but mental illness and drunkedness turned his appearance into an embarrassing freak-show spectacle before the roaring crowd.

Backstage, Jessco got booted from the Ryman, Auerbach reported later. Dwelling on their awkward choice for an opener was among their only missteps. The rest was a smooth travel through the blues of Akron.

Official Website: TheBlackKeys.com

Mark it as official - The Raconteurs have played Nashville
or near Nashville too much in 2008.

Too much live Jack White might seem an oxymoron, but after two warm-up shows
in April and Bonnaroo, the Ryman revealed the band's limitations.

Even on the Ryman stage, they could not touch earlier shows at the Cannery
Ballroom or Bonnaroo.

To the untrained eye, they came out, roared through some
of their better material and saluted their adopted hometown audience. But this
night, the band didn't stray far from the studio versions and rarely touched
the frenetic stage presence from their summer festival stops.

Coming close to their tour's end, Brendon Benson, Jack White and company
seemed to run on empty, going through the motions through a set barely passing
the 90-minute mark.

Let's cut to the chase on the opener - The Kills' brand of screeching
tuneless noise rock was awful. The Ryman should institute a "You must be
at least this talented to play on our stage" policy after letting these
two assault eardrums.

I don't know that what this duo (trio if you count their drum machine, which
radiated more musical ability than the flesh-and-bone band members) spat out
between cliched rock poses actually counts as music.

Of course, I believed the Raconteurs would soothe the wounds left by the
opener.

They had to ... if not for their own energy issues.

Lacking in spontaneity, they assembled some highlights from their two
records, stitched in a swirling jam that threatened to go somewhere but
dead-ended with "Rich Kid's Blues."

When they departed the stage after "Blues," just their eighth song
in under an hour, people in my pew each flashed each other "Are you
kidding me?" expressions.

Did the five songs they played upon returning qualify as an encore or a
second set? Bringing The Kills back to play on two songs, including
"Steady As She Goes," didn't earn them any favors.

But overall, the
quintet brought a higher energy for the final five, with "Hold Up"
and Broken Boy Soldiers" showing signs of life.

After mercifully dispatching The Kills, the Raconteurs tore into
"Carolina Drama," White's excellent murder ballad, let the audience
handle the closing lyric, bowed and that was it.

This show practically begged
for an encore, but house lights never lie.

Maybe all the festival shows left the band gassed. Maybe Jack White already
began plotting his next adventure in red-and-white color schemes.

Devoid of nearly anything dynamic, the Ryman show signaled might be time to
get Meg White back to Nashville and let the Raconteurs rest till 2010.

Official Website: TheRaconteurs.com

Technorati Tags: jack black, ryman, the raconteurs

Waiting in the long line for a spot close to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band yielded immediate benefits.

An hour before the doors opened, we caught pieces of the soundcheck echoing through the Sommet Center atrium, with the E Streeters running through a Sam Cooke song several times until they finally locked in step.

When they emerged to begin their epic set, there was no question that they locked it in every step of the way.

Loose, spontaneous and totally in control, Bruce and Co. grabbed the wheel, took turns even they didn't expect and only eased off the gas with their final bow after "Dancing in the Dark" closed a 45-minute encore.

With a few sections in the Sommet Center's 300 level glaringly empty, the E Streeters couldn't have come any closer to a sell out, not in Music City. The crowd more than compensated for the vacant seats. Not a verse went by without some sing-alongs, and Springsteen frequently turned the microphone over audience members in the front row.

Springsteen plucked signs song request signs from the crowd - as well as one declaring "I Love Max" - then proceeded to tear through "Good Rockin' Tonight" before telling us all about that "God damn guitar" in the middle of Greetings From Asbury Park tune "Growin' Up," in which he recounted buying his first guitar.

The more elaborate the sign, the better chance it stood with The Boss - "Girls In Their Summer Clothes" was inevitable once he grabbed one reading "Boys in Their Summer Clothes" with a picture of a younger Bruce playing baseball in 70's-era short shorts.

A few nuggets from Springsteen's non-E Street moments made the cut - the best song ever written about the collapse of the Rust Belt ("Youngstown") and the raucous fiddle tune "American Land" from the Seeger Sessions tour. He also crooned through the first few bars of "Walk the Line" to satisfy a request for a Johnny Cash tune and in honor of Joe Strummer's birthday, effortlessly bashed out The Clash's version of "I Fought the Law."

But that was the beauty. The performances felt effortless. When it didn't - the band huddling to discuss how to play some of the requests - Bruce and Co. provided moments no other band could duplicate.

In a cavernous hockey arena, they connect with their fans. Taking audience requests, shaking hands with fans bunched up against the stage railing, Bruce sitting in a lone chair at the edge of the sage for "I'm On Fire," tossing a harmonica to a kid in the crowd .... those acts make sense of all the white manes in the pit area. Across three-plus decades, Bruce's audience always comes back.

Five hours after getting in line, nearly three after the show started, our common refrain for how many songs they played was, "I lost count." With the band's relentless drive and improvised setlist, keeping pace with the E Street gang was demanding yet constantly rewarding.

Technorati Tags: bruce springsteen, sommet center, set list, nashville

Ordinarily, the "actress teams up with indie rocker to pursue music career" might elicit two disparate reactions - yawns or laughs.

Just ask Scarlet Johansson.

But anyone who sweltered through Wednesday's sold-out She & Him show at the Mercy Lounge knows that actress Zooey Deschanel's foray into songwriting territory is no Lohan-esque joke.

Just ask Jack White and his entourage.

With M. Ward ("Him") in tow, Deschanel evoked the best of late 60's/early 70's singer-songwriters, and her country-tinged songs felt at home on the Nashville stage.

Taken out of the sometimes sparse production of their album, Volume One, songs like "This is Not a Test" and "Sentimental Heart" suited the live setting better.

"Sweet Darlin," however, would flat out rock wherever it is performed .

Minus a new song and a strong take on the Carter Family's "Hello Stranger" in the encore, the set came straight from Volume One (backup vocalist Becky Stark took the spotlight for one song).

Having just seen an amazing performance from Ward at Chicago's Pitchfork Festival, I was surprised how easily he slid into the sideman's niche to let Deschanel channel her muse and lead the band. Without that previous fix, I might have griped about the lack of Ward solo material in the set.

But aside from the shortness of the set, gripes are few for She & Him's first stop in Nashville. Should She & Him's partners find time for a Volume 2, don't expect a return visit to the Mercy Lounge; before they even arrived, they were too big for those confines.

Deschanel aptly proved that if she drops her day job, she won't lack for work in music.

Maybe this should become a Nashville tradition - any show with a hipster-drawing headliner should have a country legend as an opener. She & Him landed Country Music Hall of Famer Charlie Louvin, still spry in his eighties and eager to talk about the ladies attractive or otherwise.

While admitting his voice was not at its best, Louvin and company ran through a handful of his songs and some country standards in a 45-minute blast that balanced out the newness of She & Him.

Josh Ritter might have the happiest stage presence of any musician touring today.

For all the comparisons to Bob Dylan, who rarely gives an audience anything better than upbeat indifference, Ritter defies the dour, unknowable songwriter.

While navigating through heartbreak and murder ballads, he always returned to a blissful grin.

He regularly broke into laughter while telling stories about the amount of skin he saw displayed around Vanderbilt and potatoes in his basement that look like Dick Cheney. Not there’s anything wrong with an Idaho native collecting potatoes.

On the first of two sold-out nights at the Belcourt Theatre, Ritter and his band didn’t race so much as expertly shift gears through spare ballads, some brief forays close into Strokes territory, a few fiddle tunes and Ritter playing one tune entirely in the dark. The diversity onstage was staggering, with band member shuffling on and off, acoustics and electrics traded off.

In full disclosure, I have to commit Americana heresy here - I don’t own anything from Ritter. Aside from a few promo and compilation cuts, I know him mainly by reputation.

He showed how well he earned it on Tuesday.

The touching songs – “Temptation of Adam” and “Empty Hearts” - stuck the best, although shaky moments were few for this tour-tested outfit. Even with his most vulnerable lyrics, it never took long for Ritter to return to smiling.

Ritter and multi-instrumentalist Zack Hickman (sporting an amazing handlebar ‘stache) stepped away from the microphones and amplifiers for an acoustic interlude. The power could have gone out, and Ritter’s music would have chugged along without a flinch.

Had she chosen to just talk for an hour, opener Ingrid Michaelson would have still pleased the audience with her magnificent stage presence. Switching between piano and guitar, she never stopped entertaining (the guy next to me compared her to Juno). Her voice propelled songs such as “Overboard” and “Die Alone,” although not all were as memorable. Still, her transcendent banter left me craving more.

(Writer's note: Per Mr. Plant's banter, this review will skip any mentions of "grizzled rock gods" or bluegrass high priestess" pounded into every article about this collaboration.)

He might not release those banshee wails anymore, but Robert Plant's amazingly preserved voice more than held its ground when mingling with the flawless tones of tourmate Alison Krauss during their second night at the Louisville Palace Theatre.

Never nostalgic or too serious, this odd supergroup plowed through 2-hours of musical acreage on Sunday night, tilling up revamped Led Zeppelin gems, bluegrass, and every song from their best-selling Raising Sand.

While sharing the stage with Krauss, guitarist/producer T-Bone Burnett and a solid backing band, Plant remained the consummate rock star, his swagger building as the show went on. He strutted and shuffled, leaned hard on the microphone stand and always looked natural in his approach.

Krauss was slightly more reserved until she grabbed the fiddle or hit those pristine high notes.

The live highlights barely strayed from the best of Sand. The Townes Van Zandt dirge "Nothin'" brimmed with intensity only found live, while Krauss shone through the darkness of "Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us" and Tom Waits' "Trampled Rose."

The Sand highlights were expected, but the reworked Zeppelin cuts took stark detours. An apocalyptic banjo line submerged "Black Dog" in a Louisiana swamp to great effect. "When the Levee Breaks" bore more in common with Memphis Minnie's original than the Zeppelin take.

The best demanded the fewest changes - "The Battle of Evermore." Krauss' soaring vocal equaled the late Sandy Denny as Plant's duet partner (Plant introduced it as, "This is an English song .... if Mordor is in England").

Krauss got her solo spotlights as well, going a capella on "Down to the River to Pray." With a backing trio led by Plant, Krauss easily punched through the drunken whooping that threatened to derail the O' Brother, Where Art Thou? standout.

The only bump came on a two-song interlude from Burnett - one bizarre, one bluesy, both were received poorly from the sold-out crowd.

Plant assured the crowd he dreaded "Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)" for the looks that Krauss gave him when he screwed up, and sure enough they caught eyes and laughed about two minutes into the Everly Brothers' tune.

Through ovation after ovation, the band stayed loose; Plant even turned out the best-ever response to the anonymous fan's proclamation of love. "You wouldn't love me. Maybe you would ... but not for long," he said between laughs.

Those hoping for a Zeppelin reunion tour might not love him quite so much. Plant rarely stopped smiling, and when he declared the show "the second night in a new career," there was no questioning him.

Closing with the only song they could - the Doc Watson weeper "Your Long Journey" - these new duet partners began their own long path in sweeping fashion.

Reports of the New Pornographers’ demise are greatly exaggerated, if their Friday show at the Cannery Ballroom is any indication.

Despite missing core members Dan Bejar (on tour with Destroyer) and Neko Case (sidelined with a fractured ankle), A.C. Newman led the Pornos through a rollicking Friday night set heavy on its brand of tuneful pop songs.

Keyboardist Kathryn Calder didn’t merely replace Case’s vocals, but completely glossed over the indie rock goddess’ absence. When the group broke into the somber “Challengers,” the title track Case’s most prominent vocal on their latest album, it was the second biggest surprise of the night.

The largest opened the brief encore – an enthusiastic take on “Don’t Bring Me Down” from fellow Canadians ELO.

With their harmonies intact, the band didn’t stumble once. The hour-plus set easily surpassed the studio versions – even when the Pornographers went soft, they never sacrificed their relentlessness.

No Case meant one big silver lining - every pause in the music wasn’t loaded with badly coiffed hipsters shouting marriage proposals to her.

Sprinted through the layered “My Rights Versus Yours” then nearly every significant track off its last two long-players, Newman showed that he captained this ship even on Bejar tunes like “Myriad Harbor.”

With the news about Case, Okkervil River stood a good chance of upstaging their tourmates.

They came close, and Will Sheff’s heartfelt, literate songs demonstrated this Austin band qualified for its own headlining tour. With a tight crew behind him, Sheff ably warbled above his own acoustic playing, his soulful voice at times evoking a long-lost Davies brother.

The arrangements were nothing less than stellar, with bursts of trumpet, electric guitar and piano placed perfectly in nearly every song.

Minus its superstars, this indie rock twinbill went on without a hitch.