As I've pointed out several times before, Boston's Orpheum Theatre is not my favorite concert venue; but Tedeschi Trucks Band is one of the few best bands in the world and seeing them is an delight not to be missed ... well worth a non-optimal audience experience. We'd learned to get tickets in the center of the balcony and that's what we did when they went on sale for the band's annual early-December stop. We only got tickets for the second of their three-night stand, though perhaps we should have gotten tickets for all three, and then followed this band to the ends of the earth, they're just amazing.
Parked in Sarah's and Dave's building on a semi-cold, snowy Boston night on Friday, December 6th. The late Fall has already turned Winter-cold and we've already been hit with a big, long snow-storm. Had dinner at Kinsale's and then bustled the few blocks down Tremont to Hamilton Place, where they'd set up metal detectors. Sigh, just another bit of rock concert hassle to put up with; Sarah and Dave didn't even try to bring in cigarettes or vape, thinking they might be "confiscated" for no reason.
The lobby amazingly wasn't packed yet and we had a chance to check out the merch table, they had a great poster for the Boston stand but nothing we wanted to buy. Went upstairs to our seats, among the gorgeous architecture covered with chipped paint and scaffolding. Dave's seat barely rested on its hinges, he thought it might totally collapse sometime during the concert. But whatever, we were second row center in the balcony and they had huge stacks of speakers blocking lots of sight lines but we were fine, and soon nestled in with a couple of big beers and ciders.
The concert was sold out of course (the whole stand had been for months), but the crowd was late-arriving on a busy Friday night. The band came out a little late with new keyboard player Gabe Dixon and new bassist Brandon Boone. Since we first saw them back in 2011 (and were totally blown away by them) they've had very little turnover. But they continue to make great personnel choices and though it's tragic that Kofi Burbridge is gone and we loved Tim LeFebvre's contributions, Dixon and Boone are great replacements.
Well, they launched right into it and we and all the people in the theater were instantly on the TTB planet. There's a very good audience recording of the show on the Internet Archive and you need to go listen to that right now. Almost every second of the show exhibited amazing execution and arrangement. The sound was great, especially where we were, and the amazing thing was that there was very little chatter from the audience. There was some, but nowhere near the amount you're usually surrounded by at a rock concert. Everyone there was concentrating on every note that came from the stage and enjoying the fuck out of it. Sure there was some singing along (see third song below), but Susan, Mike, Mark, Alicia, and new vocal addition Gabe drowned us all out.
Here's the first set:
Laugh About It
Don't Know What It Means
The Letter
Don't Drift Away
Right on Time
Get What You Deserve
Don't Keep Me Wonderin'
How Blue Can You Get?
Idle Wind
Again, just listen to it. This band is on top of the world and the music they put out is riveting. Susan was singing as well as ever, and her backup from Mattison, Rivers, and Chakour was intricate and so good at adding even more emotion and color to the lyrics. The horn section seemed to me to be more upfront and involved, and as good as Trucks is this seemed to be a slightly more quiet night from him, which allowed everyone else on stage to shine. But when it was his time to take the lead, watch out!
OK, maybe Susan isn't in the top echelon of blues guitarists, but she sure is for vocals. Brandon Boone is perhaps not as dynamic as LeFebvre (or Oteil Burbridge before him), but he's getting there. Gabe Dixon's sound on piano is just fantastic, though of course we missed Kofi on organ and flute.
Wow, what a first set. It was all fantastic of course but a few highlights I recall were the emotion of the ensemble on The Letter, the amazing groove of Don't Drift Away, led by Alicia's high part, Gabe Dixon channeling Gregg Allman on Don't Keep Me Wonderin', and the growl of How Blue Can You Get? Idle Wind was a great ending and in the middle of it the band paused to showcase the drummers with a dual solo.
Ack, the whole theater was full of excited people, and after waiting through some reasonable lines for bathroom and beer, we were back in our seats, and then the band came back out. They'd set up a mini-acoustic set at the front of the stage with small trap sets for JJ Johnson and Tyler Greenwell, vocal mikes right behind them, chairs for Derek and Susan with Brandon on bass fiddle behind them, and a couple mikes for the horn players on the right.
Derek played an acoustic slide and it was awesome. The sound he got out of that guitar and the skill he showed on it were surreal. Susan struggled to stay in her chair and still emote that way she does, but she did, and this was an entirely successful mini-set, I hope they add this as a regular feature to their show.
Here's the second set, the first four songs with the small setup:
Back Where I Started
Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning
Forty-Four Blues
I Am Yours
Down in the Bottom
High & Mighty
Angel From Montgomery > Sugaree
Leaving Trunk >
Volunteered Slavery (Rahsaan Roland Kirk)
Bound for Glory
Again, just a few things that stood out for me were the funk of Forty-Four Blues, Derek's technical excellence on I Am Yours, and the great vocal of Mike Mattison on Leaving Trunk.
OMG, we did not want them to stop! They finally brought it to a climax with their classic Bound For Glory, featuring a spectacular coda from Alicia, and then shuffled off for a short encore break. When they came back out Mark Rivers stepped up to the front of the stage and I knew what was coming ... kind of. I'd heard they had worked up James Taylor's Fire and Rain but I was unprepared for how soulfully sung and how beautiful this was, especially when the whole band joined in on the chorus, "I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end."
And then they finished off the night with a no-holds-barred cover of their great recent song, Signs, High Times. I've loved this on record and was thrilled to see it live, and to hear Susan raving at us to pick a fucking side and sit down, no more sitting on the fence. And you knew whom she was talking about.
Yikes, we should have bought tickets to all three nights! Or maybe not, the Orpheum can be a pain. But we got out of there pretty quickly (as opposed to most of the people in the orchestra I'm sure), and went right over to the Common.
The Nova Scotia Christmas Tree had been lit the night before and there it was, looking as magnificent as ever. I circled around it and touched a few branches, and thought of peace and friendship. Not too cold a night, but soon we were getting a little chilly and dragged ourselves up the hill. The Red Line was having some kind of crisis and so we drove Dave home and then got home pretty quickly ourselves. I already can't wait to see them again!
