Live Review: Tedeschi Trucks Band Bring a Bunch of Friends To ‘The Garden Parties’ at TD Garden
Much like jazz or even rock, the demise of the blues has been vastly overstated. On the surface there aren’t a lot of combinations of the 12-bar blues form, but when you have expert musicians guiding the helm that ship can be steered in a multitude of directions. The annual Boston homecoming show of Susan Tedeschi and her husband Derek Trucks, along with their crack band featuring a trio of horns and three backing singers, was moved from the creaky old Orpheum to the TD Garden, which is a considerable step up. Ostensibly tied to the twenty fifth anniversary of Tedeschi’s debut record Just Won’t Burn, the set only included the title track from the record, following on the heels of “Circles ‘Round the Sun,” with a blistering sax solo that was more in the vein of ’60s jazz from labels like ESP-Disk or Impulse!. Of course, the average Tedeschi Trucks Band show features plenty of covers and they cover a lot of ground, not just rotating a handful from show to show.
The two Derek and the Dominos covers I saw in ’21 were both relegated to the bench, and then special guest Warren Haynes came out on stage. He was referred to by Susan as family as he and Derek both spent a lot of time together in the Allman Brothers Band during the last decade-plus of the band’s existence. Haynes joined in for a quartet of covers which for me was the highlight of the entire night. Starting with the Allman Brothers Band’s staple “Dreams,” the slow burn and keening guitars of Trucks and Haynes played off each other with the familiarity and kinship they’ve shared for years. The jam was a long one, with a searing slide solo by Haynes until Trucks took control back over and ended up breaking a string.
The mood switched rather dramatically with a really sweet arrangement of Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic” that featured Haynes on vocals and hit a real peak with Trucks’ slide work. That ended and Lukas Nelson joined in on another Allman’s song, the sublimely beautiful “Blue Sky”. With Haynes and Nelson departing, the band took the reins of The Faces’ “Stay With Me” and shook the foundation of the Garden with a raucous version. Tedeschi has played her turquoise telecaster with famous signatures emblazoned over it for a while now, and she was pretty clearly not the only one in the household with some real guitar playing talent. The trio really breathed some life back into the blues tonight as they always do.
Lukas Nelson may have a famous father with a side gig, and he has had the honor of backing another music legend for a couple of records and live shows, but he’s shown that he can do it alone as well. Well, at least with his Promise of the Real bandmates. Unsurprisingly, countrified rock is his staple, and he delivered a solid set, making his Telecaster sing.
