Location: Trieste / Teatro Politeama Rossetti / Italy
Date: Thursday, April 18, 2019
It’s not every day that Tedeschi Trucks Band roll into Europe. This is a 12-piece outfit led by the husband-and-wife team of the Truckses: slide guitar grandmaster Derek Trucks, a true wizard with the slide, and his partner in life, the superb singer and equally accomplished guitarist Susan Tedeschi.
Derek Trucks’ musical career has been fatefully tied to The Allman Brothers Band since his childhood. The band discovered the young and unbelievably gifted Derek as a boy, when he played with them as a special guest, until he joined permanently in 1999. He stayed a member right up until the band’s official retirement in 2014. Derek Trucks started playing guitar very early, and since his little hands were still tiny back then, the little guy leaned on a slide from the very start. Over the years he developed his own unique style of playing, and there’s hardly a song where a slide isn’t keeping his left hand company.
Tedeschi Trucks Band were born out of two bands. One had previously been led by Susan, the other by Derek. Given that both musicians had built serious reputations by then, it was almost logical that joining forces would bring them even more success and fame. Awards in all sorts of categories, Grammys included, simply rained down, and since the band’s formation in 2010 they’ve racked up five studio albums and one live record. This year saw the release of the fifth studio album, »Signs«, which is also what brought the band to Europe.
This band’s shows are always something special. They’re one of a kind and can’t be repeated. Generally speaking, every concert is unique, and yet. Tedeschi Trucks Band change up the setlist every night, to the point of being unrecognizable, and that’s one of their biggest charms and draws, which also guarantees a big turnout. The show in Trieste was practically sold out too. As a rule, Tedeschi Trucks Band usually kick off their shows in a slimmed-down version, without the horn section and backing vocalists, as a sextet. The repertoire is a mix of covers and originals and a real riddle every night, which makes for a treat all its own.
What hit hardest was the feel, the tightness, and the unbelievably well-judged reworked arrangements of some of the originals that aren’t the band’s own. Derek Trucks’ guitar playing on one side and Susan Tedeschi’s vocal power and punch on the other were the two main players, firmly at the center of attention the whole time. Trucks is a refined gentleman who comes across a bit shy and reserved on stage and only rarely looks toward the crowd. In the role of conductor and commander, he kept a watchful eye the whole time on what the other members of the twelve-piece band were up to. His trusty red Gibson SG beauty served him faithfully as the man blended an extraordinary, layered landscape of finely tuned, sensuous guitar handiwork. His guitar is blues, but it’s also southern rock and jazz. The vocal arrangements definitely flirt with blues cues, but the songs weave in a pile of influences, from gospel, soul, R&B, Americana to strictly pop melodicism, spiced with country flourishes and the soulful acrobatics of the incredible Susan Tedeschi, who also laid down some seriously juicy, vibrant guitar solos. The band even flirted with bits that unfolded in a psychedelic direction and, of course, in the spirit of world music. You could loosely call it Southern progressive blues, though the word blues is a stretch, since at times, thanks to the incredibly cunningly blurred genre lines, it’s barely noticeable, if not outright detectable. And on top of that, two drummers, with two different approaches to their drumming techniques, which filled out the available musical landscape even further.
There wasn’t much talking, if any. A few polite gestures. The band tumbled from song to song and stunned with incredible tightness and a gigantic sound. They worked like an orchestra with a vocal choir that theatrically filled out the backgrounds of the songs with gospel, while the flugelhorn, tenor sax and trombone added the dot on the “i” in perfecting the sonic landscape. Apart from a few solo spots that ran a little too long, this was a spectacle that didn’t leave a single person in the Politeama Rossetti hall indifferent. There was no shortage of thunderous ovations, applause and delirious feedback from the passionate Italian crowd. With this whole magical carousel of flawless sound and performance perfection, you couldn’t really expect anything else. An outstanding and unforgettable concert night in Trieste, then, with the exceptional Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi and their “family” of incredibly tight and accomplished musicians. A spectacle that touches you completely, enchants you and carries you away.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist:
1. Don’t Drift Away
2. Keep On Growing (Derek And The Dominoes)
3. Within You Without You (The Beatles)
4. Just As Strange
5. Bird On A Wire (Leonard Cohen)
6. Laugh About It
7. Sticks & Stones (Titus Turner)
8. Idle Wind
9. Hard Case
10. Sky Is Crying (Albert King)
11. Don’t Know What
12. Shame
13. Sweet Inspiration
14. Part Of Me
15. Let Me Get By
—encore—
16. Statesboro Blues (Blind Willie McTell)
17. Made Up Mind
