<p> Has the tired, 21st century rock scene nurtured anyone more thrilling than Jack White? It's not that he somehow reinvented rock with the White Stripes, the Dead Weather or the Raconteurs. It's that he has reenergized the music, reconnecting it in forceful, deliberate ways to some of its richest roots. </p> <p>The evidence can be found on all his recordings and most recently on the Raconteurs' DVD <em>Live at Montreux 2008</em>. Opening with the guitar-led clangor of “Consoler of the Lonely,” White's band sounds only a few notes distant from the amp bursting blues-rock of Blue Cheerwhen they weren't reforging heavy riffs from the songbooks of Blue Oyster Cult, Golden Earring and Steppenwolf. The tempo slows and the volume lowers for the piano powered “You Don't Understand Me” (although even here, the dynamics careen close to the edge by song's end) and the mood shifts close to Anglo-Celtic folk rock on “Old Enough.” But the varying only serves the heighten the pile driver choruses of “Steady, As She Goes” and “Hold Up.” </p> <p>The drumstick smashing power of the performances at the Montreux Jazz Festival is manic at the edges as the Racounteurs push rock the comfort zone into the </p>
