Third Man Celebrates 10 Years With the Return of The Raconteurs

“We haven’t played this shit in, like, 10 years,” said The Raconteurs' co-frontman Brendan Benson with a laugh during the band’s headlining set in downtown Nashville on Saturday night. Benson and band were performing on an outdoor stage as part of a blowout to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Third Man Records, the label established and helmed by his fellow Raconteur — and fellow Michigander-turned-Nashvillian — Jack White.

The Raconteurs’ roughly hour-long set just after sundown proved that the chemistry and the chops are still there, and the songs are still mostly quite good. Benson, White and their bandmates were playing to the converted, of course, so they would’ve found forgiveness even if they had come across a bit rusty. The parking lot across the street from Third Man’s storefront had been buzzing since early afternoon with mega-fans sporting the label’s trademark black-and-yellow merch, and many were queuing up to buy more.

In the afternoon, the bash showcased a slew of diverse talent, from poetry readings by Betsy Phillips, Sheree Renée Thomas and Caroline Randall Williams, to DJ sets from loads of TMR-adjacent rock ’n’ rollers and performances from the likes of Detroit greats The Dirtbombs and The Detroit Cobras. I queued up way at the back of the outdoor line for The Gories’ set in Third Man's Blue Room as the Craig Brown Band was issuing some Stones-y country-rock from the outdoor Mission Stage. “Who let us follow The Dirtbombs?!” frontman Brown asked incredulously between songs. But tunes like last year’s “Big City Small Town” held their own, imbued with Northern punk attitude and a spirited Southern twang.

I somehow managed to weasel my way through the crowd and into the Blue Room via a back entrance just before The Gories started. Though they were disbanded during a big chunk of the ’90s and the Aughts, The Gories have an earlier formation date than anyone else who played Third Man’s soiree on Saturday, and the history shows. Co-frontmen Mick Collins (also of The Dirtbombs) and Danny Kroha and drummer Peggy O’Neill operate using a simple but effective formula: a dual-guitar attack of blues progressions backed by thumping, tom-driven beats. Kroha and Collins — the latter wearing his shades, as always — swapped howling vocals on songs like the boogying “Goin’ to the River.” The Gories maintain a cucumber-cool sort of insouciance, whether they’re adjusting their amp settings (“I turned up the reverb — that's how you know it's garage rock,” said Collins at one point) or playing a song about, as Kroha explained it, Canadian water-rights disputes. It’s not always in time or in tune, but it’s always a gas to watch.

During The Gories’ set, I received a text that there was a ceremony taking place on the Mission Stage. I scrambled outside to discover I’d missed Third Man’s neighbors the Nashville Rescue Mission issuing some sort of appreciation for White & Co., but I wasn’t too late to catch the former White Stripe presenting several longtime TMR employees with tokens of appreciation. Of particular note: White’s only two 10-year employees — Ben Swank and Ben Blackwell — were presented with pins as well as a more significant token that I was later told was a complete surprise to them: minority ownership in the company. One of the recipients may or may not have let it slip to the Scene that he shed some tears at the news, but it’s hard to blame him. That’s quite a gesture.

At that point, White introduced country singer Lillie Mae, letting us know she has a Dave Cobb-produced album — a follow-up to her White-produced 2017 debut LP Forever and Then Some — coming out in a matter of months. As always, Mae cheerfully delivered a snare-tight set of classic-country-informed tunes bolstered by her high, lonesome wail and world-class fiddle chops. She wished the late, great Merle Haggard a happy birthday (he died on April 6, 2016, the same day he turned 79) and closed out her set with a stretched-out, ’grassy and madly impressive take on “El Cumbanchero” following the style of The Four Amigos.

After a great deal of onstage sound-checking, the sun went down and White’s diminutive and adorable mother Teresa Gillis strode midstage to introduce The Raconteurs, who kicked off with 2008’s “Consolers of the Lonely.” With longtime collaborator (and White’s Dead Weather bandmate) Dean Fertita providing auxiliary instrumentation at stage right, the band ripped through a handful of songs from their forthcoming Help Us Stranger, including “Sunday Driver,” “Help Me Stranger” and the riffing, classic-rock-styled “Bored and Razed."

There were also, of course, old standards, among them the buzzing “Level,” the vaguely bluegrassy “Old Enough,” the manic stomp of “Salute Your Solution,” the languid waltz of “Blue Veins” and the undeniably catchy “Steady, as She Goes.” The set wasn’t flawless, but it was among the more compelling shows White has played with one of his myriad projects in Nashville over the years. That’s largely thanks to the telepathic playing of drummer Patrick Keeler and bassist “Little Jack" Lawrence, whose defunct garage-rock outfit The Greenhornes established the duo as one of the most potent rhythm sections modern rock ’n’ roll has to offer. But it’s also due in large part to the aforementioned Benson, who — though not as visible as White in just about any sense of the word — is under-sung, as a first-rate songwriter and performer.

The Racs kicked off their encore with a fittingly sloppy cover of The Go's "Keep on Trash" before sliding into a seemingly unlikely rendition of Foghat's "Chevrolet" that featured a bit of harmonica-honking courtesy of Benson. After some coaxing from the crowd — it didn't take much — the band wrapped with “Carolina Drama," followed by some effusive thanks and a farewell from White. (If you missed this show and missed out on tickets to The Racs' two shows Monday and Tuesday at Third Man's Blue Room, you'll have two more chances to see them coming soon: They'll play the Ryman Aug. 29-30, and tickets go on sale April 12 — here for Aug. 29 and here for Aug. 30.)

This sold-out springtime block party was the culmination of all that White and his cohorts have accomplished since setting up shop in the little building on Seventh Avenue South a decade ago. There’s been no shortage of triumphs, from Grammy-winning records by TMR artists to countless well-attended events in the Blue Room. But the business has had setbacks as well, including laying off seven employees roughly one year ago. “It was an unfortunate moment,” White admitted of the layoffs when I spoke to him in November. “We knew it was coming.” But Third Man has ridden it out and done something few others have managed in this century, in this city or any other: built an independent, multifaceted record label from the ground up, and kept a great deal of the power in the hands of the artists themselves. And to that, we say congrats, and here's to the next 10 years.

See our slideshow for more photos.