Raconteurs

When: Sept. 22 at 9 p.m. (doors 8 p.m.) Where: The NorVa, 317 Monticello Ave., Norfolk Tickets: $28 ($31 day of show) Details: (757) 627-4547 or www.thenorva.com

It was the best of times, it was the time that some had the worst time recalling.

The year was 1998, when Jack White, Brendan Benson, Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler got to know each other at Detroit club shows.

"It's all a kind of thing where a lot of the time we can't remember the first times we met a lot of the people we know from that period," said White, speaking along with Benson from New York. "Dean [Fertita], who plays keyboards with us live, I can't for the life of me ever remember meeting him."

The Raconteurs dawned when White and Benson got together in Benson's attic and wrote what would become the band's first single, "Steady, As She Goes." When they started work on the next song, "Broken Boy Soldiers," Keeler and Lawrence were invited to join in. "Pretty soon we were writing four more, five more songs, and it was like, 'Wow, what is this?' We didn't even know what it was. Turned into a band before our eyes," said White.

Virgin FestivalBands

The Bands: The Who, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Killers, Gnarls Barkley, The Flaming Lips, Tiesto, The Raconteurs, Scissor Sisters, Wolfmother, New Pornographers, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Drive-By Truckers and more. When: Saturday, Sept. 23. Parking lot opens at 8 a.m., gates open at 10. Concert ends at 10 p.m. Where: Pimlico Race Course, Baltimore. Tickets: $97.50 (plus fees and taxes) Details: (800) 551-7328 or www.ticketmaster.com

B y the time their debut album was released earlier this year, White's star had burned brightly through several years of success as the singing and guitar-playing half of the White Stripes. Meanwhile, Benson had made a name for himself through his well-received power-pop solo recordings, and Lawrence and Keeler were known as the bassist and drummer, respectively, for the Greenhornes. The quartet's reputation preceded them and set expectations high for those who caught wind of what was going on.

"Broken Boy Soldiers," the album, was as solid as fans of the parts of this sum might have hoped. White's joyously jagged edges meshed with Benson's solid pop sense, and the "Steady, As She Goes" single drove the Raconteurs into the charts and onto radios.

Aside from the album's success, the experience has sparked its members in other ways. "It was never my intention to be a solo artist," said Benson. "This has sort of been a long time coming for me, just to be part of a band, and what a band. I feel like these are my favorite musicians, and musicians whom I really respect and admire, which, in turn, I think, forces me to kind of step it up."

As for White, "I've been in other bands where we've done things, we've collaborated and stuff, but I've never really actually sat down and wrote songs with another person. That's not how we do things in the White Stripes. In this band, it's very multilayered."

Even with high-profile gigs such as their host-band turn on MTV's Video Music Awards, upcoming big-venue opening sets with Bob Dylan and a slot at this month's Virgin Festival in Baltimore, it's highly unlikely that White will make theWhite Stripes a distant memory. He is, in fact, adamant about not calling The Raconteurs a side project.

"That's what a lot of people think," said White. "It was completely -- I hate to use the word -- organic, which is just lame, but it really is something like that. It's just something accidental or organic or something that nobody had any preconceptions of.

"We didn't sit down and try to construct it or try to make 'Sgt. Pepper' when we recorded it. It's the first snapshot of what happened when we all got in a room together."