Since then, though, they’ve become more a part of the social and musical fabric of the city, collaborating with local musicians, attending shows and, in the case of Brendan Benson and Little Jack, dating some Nashville gals.

Thus, this first live gig in support of their second album is less a showcase for the sceptical, more a chance for a ‘local’ band to warm up in front of friends before hitting the road.

His accommodating colleagues allowing him to go to places the sparseness of the Stripes would never allow.

From the opening seconds of ‘Consoler Of The Lonely’, this isn’t a warm-up so much as a white-hot branding iron of intent jabbed into the hide of the world. The crowd – many of whom have been camped outside the Cannery Ballroom for 12 hours in unseasonably cold weather – roar their approval of Jack’s skeleton-themed Manuel suit (the tailor behind glam-country classics worn by Gram Parsons, no less). Indeed, for all those democratic intentions, for all Brendan’s prodding of the audience (“You’re kinda quiet for a Nashville crowd!”), for all that new songs like ‘Attention’ show off one of the best rhythm sections on the planet, the White Stripe is still unquestionably the primary focus here.

Switching between piano (‘You Don’t Understand Me’), acoustic (‘Top Yourself’) and, of course, his furious, unpredictable, physical electric guitar playing (‘Blue Veins’, ‘Steady, As She Goes’, pretty much all of ’em), you can’t take your eyes off him, even during the likes of Brendan-led encore opener ‘Many Shades Of Black’. He’s clearly relishing this more conventional and now well-oiled set-up, too – his accommodating colleagues allowing him to go to places the sparseness of the Stripes would never allow.

Or to put it more simply, making it easier for him to show off. So what with Jack hinting last December that he and Meg may never play another show (not to mention the grin on his face for much of tonight), it’s beginning to look like the only way most folk will get to witness his firecracker solos (and even more explosive showmanship) in future is with his ‘other’ band. But as closer ‘Broken Boy Soldiers’ leaves The Raconteurs basking in a swelling wave of feedback as they take a bow together, that doesn’t seem like such a bad thing.

Through a mix of furious networking and artistic fearlessness, the former Santi White has become a totemic figure for the current crop of genre-bending acts currently blowing raspberries at the parameters of pop. During her short career as Santogold, she’s collaborated with some of the producers at the frontline of 21st century music, from Timbaland via futurestep visionary FreQ Nasty to Mark Ronson. By sheer dint of these associations, she’d been mentioned in the same breath as MIA, James Murphy and Crystal Castles even before unleashing her first single.

Yes, stylistically she veers wildly from track to track, but no, she doesn’t forget her duty to cohere for the listener.

The four tracks to be found on her MySpace page last year showed an artist in transition, embracing everything from planet-bashing baille funk to ‘Parallel Lines’-tipping new wave. The eclecticism that has served her so well on paper however left some doubting her ability to make a cohesive album. She reacted in a recent interview, warning against the dated thinking that dictates all songs on an album should sound the same. “Everyone’s over it,” she surmised.

Before she was Santogold, the 32-year-old was a music biz veteran. For a time she was an A&R for the ‘urban’ department of Epic Records, a pop songwriter for hire (Lily Allen, Ashlee Simpson), the leader of ska revival band Stiffed, and an MC for Spank Rock. All these musical personae come into play one way or another on ‘Santogold’, which, yes, stylistically veers wildly from track to track, but no, doesn’t forget its duty to cohere for the listener.

Music is their radar. And it is forever sending them off in completely the wrong direction. Once you’d pieced together its unconventional concepts (New Zealanders in New York? An Office-style comedy with big musical numbers in the middle of each episode?), last year’s Flight Of The Conchords quickly became cult viewing. Spun out of a BBC radio show and much-lauded theatre act, the songs weren’t just tacked-on either – the Conchords arrived bearing instruments and built their sitcom around them. Bret McKenzie even had a previous 2004 album, ‘Prototype’, released as Video Kid – “a character trapped inside an electronic arena, where love and escape do not compute”. These two believed in the lost art of the spoof song.

But in the land of comedy records anyone who can sustain interest, let alone laughter, for nearly 42 minutes, is king.

The pair sing about their characters’ sad inadequacies, flights of fancy and super-banal musings with a laser eye for genre, mimicking everyone from Bowie to Marvin Gaye. What sets them apart is a real intellect for using the conventions of a genre against itself. It’s not just about clever wordplay, they genuinely understand the ironies of music’s dynamics. There’s the awkward pause after The Hiphopopotamus states “my lyrics are bottomless” on ‘Hiphopopotamus Vs Rhymenoceros’; the continual use of the ‘radio edit’ silence in between varieties of fruit on ‘Mutha’uckas’. There’s also an ability to inject the most trivial stuff into the most grandiose genres: the po-faced Pet Shop Boys rap about second-hand underpants (‘Inner City Pressure’), the ‘What’s Going On’ parody (‘Think About It’) whose spiralling lyrical contortions gradually bring us to “little slave kids making sneakers… which don’t seem that much cheaper.”

It’s got flaws, definitely, with the inclusion of a few too many lady-loving ballads at the expense of a more diverse fare like, say, ‘Albi The Racist Dragon’. But in the land of comedy records anyone who can sustain interest, let alone laughter, for nearly 42 minutes, is king. Somehow, even after you know all the punchlines, the tunes are solid enough to still bear pressing ‘repeat’. Oh, and the bit in the ‘Space Oddity’- spoof ‘Bowie’ about “receiving a transmission from David Bowie’s nipple antennae” will always spur laughter of the kind that ejects milk from the nose.

While Newcastle fell short of its prized first place in 2008, dropping two and a half points to 97.5, it was even better news for Sunderland, whose overall score for the quality of its provision shot up from 69.5 to 75. This score is an aggregate of all the survey measurements, provided by the Guardian, for the overall student experience on media and communications courses.

Oxford increased its gap over Cambridge as the country’s leading university across all subjects. Bolton remains bottom.

Newcastle and Sunderland remain way ahead of the other HE providers in the North East. Newcastle came third overall for media and communication programmes, while Sunderland came well within the top half of the league table (32nd out of 74) with Northumbria (45th), Teesside (68th) and Cumbria (74th) all trailing behind.

Lecturer in Journalism at Sunderland University, Alex Lockwood said: “This is fantastic news for the university and is a reflection of the sustained growth and hard work of the people in the department at Sunderland. Not least the students, who have put a huge amount of effort into the university’s radio station, it’s digital magazine, and its research.”

Lockwood added: “And well done to Newcastle. After the season they’ve had, they needed some good news.”

More information can be found at Unistats.com