Tedeschi Trucks Band – "Anyway" (2011)

You were talking

And I thought I heard you say

“Please leave me alone!”

Albert Einstein believed that the world was in greater peril from those who tolerated evil than from those who actually commited it. 

The crowd who thronged the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts recently to hear the Tedeschi Trucks Band not only tolerated evil in the form of lengthy, show-offy, and ultimately pointless guitar jams forced upon them by Derek Trucks, but begged him for more. 

There’s no doubt that Trucks is a guitar virtuoso of the highest order – the guy can shred with the best of them.  But there’s no there there in his guitar jams.  They’re full of sound and fury, but ultimately they signify nothing.

(Sometimes less is more!)

Did the audience care?  To the contrary – the less there there was in his solos, the more his fans hooted and hollered.

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You would think that the creator of a wildly successful music blog like 2 or 3 lines – which has been going strong since 2009 – would be a regular presence at his local live-music venues.

But I’ve never been a big fan of going to concerts – I prefer staying home and playing an artist’s recordings.  The sound quality is better, the arrangements are tighter and more economical, and you avoid a helluva lot of aggravation and expense by staying put and listening to music in the comfort of your own home rather than fighting the crowds, paying inflated prices for parking and concessions, etc.

I attended the recent Tedeschi Trucks Band appearance at Wolf Trap courtesy of a 2 or 3 lines fan who shelled out big bucks to buy  ducats for both of us just to have the opportunity to spend the evening in my company.  (Having fans go ga-ga over one is de rigeur for a suave and debonair celebrity blogger like me.)

I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I was rethinking my decision to accompany my adoring fan to the show long before it was over.  

While I enjoyed hearing the band cover songs by the Allman Brothers, Derek and the Dominoes, and the Rolling Stones, I thought the original songs that the group chose to perform – most were from I Am the Moon, a 24-song album that was released in four parts in 2022 – were meh at best.

And for some reason, I could not get comfortable in the seats at Wolf Trap.  By the end of the show, I felt like I had been on a three-hour flight in coach.  

The Tedeschi Trucks Band

To make matters worse, I had sucked down a $14 beer before the show started, and I really needed to drain the lizard by the time Tedeschi Trucks had given the crowd its obligatory two encores.

But the straw that broke this blogger’s back were those tedious Derek Trucks guitar solos.

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It appears I’m in the minority when it comes to the Tedeschi Trucks Band – there are plenty of people out there who think TTB is to die for. 

But I found some online reviews from recent TTB concert attendees who were as unenthusiastic as I was:

There is no question that Derek Trucks is a virtuoso guitarist but there are only so many blistering solos that one can take. . . . The drum solo was excruciating.  (Lynn from San Francisco.)

It seemed like every song Derek had to slow everything down with his five-minute solo.  Don’t get me wrong – he is the best slide guitarist out there, and I do appreciate his talent – [but] not every song has to be about him and his solo performance.  (Bill from Boston.)

Saw them in Clearwater, Florida [with an] enthusiastic audience of geriatrics trying to recapture 1973. . . . The band lacks soul or swing.  Way too polished for my taste. . . . Nauseating long guitar solos and a ten-minute drum solo for those who really miss the seventies.  Pass!  (Byron from St. Petersburg.)

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Click here to watch a Youtube video of the Tedeschi Trucks Band covering “Anyday.”  (That video was posted in 2011, and I assume that’s about when that performance took place.)