Concert Review: Tedeschi Trucks Band in Vancouver

First off, as I said in my last post, I'm not a "country music" fan.  This band isn't country, but...

I attended the Tedeschi Trucks Band concert at the Centre for Performing Arts in Vancouver tonight.  I am not a "fan" of this band, but had seen Derek Trucks once before, a few years back.  He's a brilliant player and not much of an entertainer.

My take on this show is that it was very solid, but not a great show.  The band was good.  Perhaps very good, but for the most part they weren't allowed to shine too much.  It's a big band.  11 people in all.  It seemed perhaps a bit much, particularly with two drummers.  It reminded me of James Brown's band, but despite being too many people in that band too... they all rocked the house down individually.

The band came on without introduction, and without any fanfare.  Susan Tedeschi said a brief "hello" at the start of the show, and spoke to the audience about 3 times in total, saying nothing interesting.  I was actually surprised at the lack of audience interaction... as with the Derek Trucks band, this show was apparently for the band, and not for the audience.  And the band seemed rather disorganized... much less crisp and professional than I expected, and apparently with no strong leadership: the band followed Derek's lead, but it was all very loose.

Susan did sing a lot.  And she sings with a lot of energy, and moderately well.  Her voice is a bit too "country" for my taste, which put me off some.  And she sang most of her high notes just a little bit flat, which bothered me as well.

There were a few backup singers (all male), who sang well.  But this band didn't seem to be about the singing... their strength was instrumental, and hinged around Derek's great slide guitar playing.  The rhythm section was very solid, with the two drummers in perfect time.  When they went into a funk number at the end of the first set, the whole band clicked, and for me this was the most amazing part of the show.  The keyboard player made the organ sing, Derek played crisp funky chops, and the horn section punched nicely throughout.

Intermission came after just less than one hour.  The second set included an extended Jazz section in the middle of one song, and that jazz section was something Miles Davis might have dreamt up in the mid-70s... for me it was horrid. Things were getting pretty bad when they went into what I think must have been the Beatles' song Why Don't We Do It In The Road?

The encore was the tune Space Captain, from Herbie Hancock's The Imagine Project album, which was pretty good, but the keyboard player made a mess of the piano solo. One encore and they were out.  It was enough for me, though there were certainly a lot of satisfied people leaving the auditorium.  I overheard a number talking about Derek... none talking about Susan.  That said, the couple sitting in front of us were big Susan Tedeschi fans, and seem to have absolutely loved the whole show.

I don't like to put down music acts.  Everyone's taste is different.  But at $75 a ticket, I expect a lot from a show, and tonight only marginally delivered that.

Good night.