Acey68 Jun 25, 2022

Tedeschi Trucks delivers new album — all of it — at Jacksonville show | Review

Tom Szaroleta

Florida Times-Union



927 days.

That's how long Tedeschi Trucks Band fans waited for Friday's show at Daily's Place in Jacksonville, the opener for the summer-long Wheels of Soul Tour. Tickets for the show first went on sale in December 2019 and fans held them through a pandemic and two postponements.

They weren't disappointed. The Jacksonville-based band was clearly anxious to showcase its new songs and figured that the best way to do that was to play them. All of them. In a row.

The band's new album, "I Am the Moon: Episode I. Crescent" was released on June 3. It's one of four albums coming this summer that are based on an ancient Persian poem, the same love story that inspired Eric Clapton's group Derek & the Dominoes' classic 1971 album  "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs."

On Friday, the Tedeschi Trucks Band told both sides of the old Layla legend, first by playing a couple of Derek & the Dominoes songs, "Bell Bottom Blues" and "Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad," which tell the tale from the man's perspective. The new Tedeschi Trucks Band songs immediately followed, telling the same story from the woman's point of view. It was an intriguing way to set up Friday night's show.

Even more impressive: None of the new songs had ever been played before a live audience. So to play them all in a row was a little risky on the band's part. 



They needn't have worried. They all worked well enough, and a few should find their way into shows for years to come. Particularly outstanding Friday night was "I Am the Moon," which showcases singers Susan Tedeschi and Gabe Dixon, who also plays keyboards and doubled as the evening's opening act with his trio. The song starts out as a plaintive duet but surges big time at the end, led by slide guitar wiz Derek Trucks. 

The other standout was the instrumental "Pasaquan," the sort of song that probably should be a legally valid excuse for speeding. "Sorry, officer, 'Pasaquan' was on." For its live debut on Friday, most of the group — including Tedeschi — left the stage, leaving Trucks center stage with a stripped-down band. It was classic Trucks, but not necessarily in the way Tedeschi Trucks Band fans are used to hearing. The song takes his guitar playing to places he hasn't really explored since his years in the Allman Brothers Band and with his early Derek Trucks Band. The song also has room for Dixon to shine on the organ and the double-drum team of Tyler "Falcon" Greenwell and his new partner, Isaac Eady, to show off a bit.

The band was boosted for Friday's show by sousaphone player Adrian Jackson, who played on the new album. Even with 12 other musicians on the stage, fans could hear that extra bass tone in just about every song



The rest of the set was peppered with favorites — "Midnight in Harlem," "Bound for Glory," "Do I Look Worried?" — and a few surprises. The band dug out a version of the blues standard "Outside Woman Blues" and guitarist David Hidalgo from opening act Los Lobos joined the first encore, War's "The World is a Ghetto," 

Tedeschi is known to get preachin' when she plays "I Pity the Fool," and she didn't hesitate to call out the Friday's Roe vs. Wade ruling while playing the song, rapid-firing lyrics about hearing about the decision and imploring the crowd to stand up for women's rights.