Tedeschi Trucks Band “Wheels of Soul” Tour – July 29th – Red Rocks Amphitheatre

Photos by Tim Dwenger

On the final night of the 2018 Wheels of Soul tour, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Drive-By Truckers, and Marcus King Band tore through Red Rocks Amphitheatre with a vengeance.  The 22 year old wizard of the blues, Marcus King, kicked things off with his band and damn near brought the house down.  The Rocks were nearly full when he started at 5:30 and only proceeded to get more packed as the boy-genius led his band through a scorching set of horn-fueled Blues.  After a “Cherie Berry” opener, the unabashed highlights of this set included a cover of Greg McDaniels’ “Compared to What” that featured Derek Trucks and Kofi Burbridge, and a blistering take on “Goodbye To Carolina” that had newbies scratching their heads in wonder.  Remember that this was all before the band yielded the stage to Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley and Drive-By Truckers in the opener-to-the-opener slot.

Cooley and Hood ripped into the set with “Ramon Casiano” and proceeded to lay waste to the beautiful night with “Lookout Mountain,” the incredible “Gravity’s Gone,” and “Sink Hole.”  After a fiery start, the band slowed things up for a bit with a couple of cuts off the English Oceans and a political rant that received mixed reviews from the faithful.  With a closer of “Let There Be Rock” The Truckers showed why they are one of the dominant Southern Rock bands of the 20-teens despite a set that betrayed their left-leaning views.

As darkness began to descend on The Rocks, Derek Trucks and his wife, Susan Tedeschi, took the stage with their massive band and, after Susan thanked the crowd for their support over the course of the tour, lit into “Statesboro Blues.” In the way that only she can, Tedeschi handled the lead vocals with precision and soul, as the band paid tribute to The Allman Brothers for the first time of the evening.  As Trucks and his wife demonstrated their guitar playing prowess, they steered the band into a pair of Bob Dylan covers (“Lord Protect My Child” and “Down in the Flood”) bookended around a trademark TTB tune “Bound for Glory.”  Next up was “Midnight in Harlem” before the band slid their way into a wild take on Bobby “Blue” Bland’s “Turn on Your Love Light” – a song known to jam fans largely due to The Grateful Dead – just a couple of days before what would have been Jerry Garcia’s 76th birthday.

As the show moved on the band showcased their own “Laugh About It” and “I Want More” alongside covers of “Show Me (A Man That’s Got A Good Woman)” and – with some help from Marcus King alongside Trucks on guitar – “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” to close out the blistering set.  It wasn’t long before the band was back for a pair of covers to wrap-up the evening, and the tour.  First up was a take on “Night Time Is The Right Time” and then Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley emerged for a soaring version of Neil Young’s anthemic “Rockin’ In The Free World.”  Yet again, Tedeschi Trucks Band delivered and showed why they have become leaders of the Blues-Rock genre and annual headliners at Red Rocks.