While the Allman Brothers Band officially retired nearly a decade ago, The Peach Music Festival, the outfit’s annual summer summit in Scranton, PA, has continued to carry the ABB flame into the present day. Even as The Peach’s founding act stepped away from the festival and its lineups expanded to include more styles of music and more contemporary sounds, the members of the Allman Brothers Band have maintained a presence at the festival. In fact, between 2015 and 2022, all but one of the members of the Allman Brothers Band’s final iteration—Gregg Allman, Butch Trucks, Jaimoe, Warren Haynes, Marc Quiñones, and Oteil Burbridge—played The Peach with another act on at least one occasion. The lone holdout from that group, guitarist Derek Trucks, finally broke his nine-year Peach drought on Sunday when he returned to Montage Mountain with his wife, Susan Tedeschi, and their lauded Tedeschi Trucks Band.

When Derek first announced his impending departure from the Allman Brothers Band in early 2014, he noted in a statement, “While I’ve shared many magical moments on stage with the Allman Brothers Band in the last decade plus … the Tedeschi Trucks Band is where my future and creative energy lies. The Tedeschi Trucks Band tour schedule keeps growing, and I feel the time has finally come to focus on a single project, which will allow me to spend that rare time off the road with my family and children. It’s a difficult decision to make, and I don’t make it lightly.”

His notable lineage and accelerated Allman Brothers Band trajectory likely influenced that decision on some level, too. Derek Trucks, the nephew of late ABB drummer Butch Trucks, became well known as a guitar sensation before he hit puberty, was drafted into his uncle’s globally successful band by age 20, and had put in a decade and a half of work in that group by the time he stepped away at 35.

This Brother had grown from prodigy to master within the walls of the family store. He needed to make his own name in order to keep on growing, and Tedeschi Trucks Band has done just that: The 12-piece is a more commanding presence on the live music circuit than ever before, with headlining shows at Boston’s TD Garden (9/27) and New York’s Madison Square Garden (9/29) on the horizon following a national summer amphitheater tour. When Derek Trucks finally returned to The Peach on Sunday, he did so as his own kind of leader.

Derek Trucks along with the men and woman of Tedeschi Trucks Band approached their Peach closing duties with intention. Like many TTB sets, this one was dedicated to the spirits and inspirations that have shaped the band, beginning and ending with songs made famous by Joe Cocker. Between covers, the long-lost Brother Derek Trucks showed the man he’s become in the past nine years, with TTB offering “Playing With My Emotions” from its ambitious four-part I Am The Moon album cycle early in the set in a confident display of growth.

Interspersed between choice cuts from TTB’s Made Up My Mind (2013) and Let Me Get By (2016), the band tossed out covers that revealed its musical DNA including favorites from The Rolling Stones and Dr. John. The cover fans were waiting for, however, came midway through as Derek Trucks traveled full circle with an emotional rendition of the Allman Brothers Band’s “Dreams”. Bridging the past and present, TTB included one more nod to the festival’s founders with a tease of  ABB’s “Little Martha” in Derek and Susan’s seminal “Midnight In Harlem”, honoring the late Duane Allman, who never could have imagined the heights his Brothers would reach when his life was tragically cut short in 1971.

Winding down the set, Derek and Susan nodded to another dearly departed influence with a closing take on “Beck’s Bolero”. Back in May, the husband and wife team played a pair of all-star tribute concerts for late guitar hero Jeff Beck at London’s Royal Albert Hall featuring Eric Clapton, Gary Clark Jr., Billy Gibbons, Rod Stewart, Kirk Hammett, and many more.

While Tedeschi Trucks Band’s Sunday Peach set was heavy with the emotional weight of spirits that came before, when returning for the encore, the band affirmed that it will always “Keep On Smilin'” with a Wet Willie cover. Closing out the show, it all came back around with “Space Captain”, as made famous by Joe Cocker on the Mad Dogs & Englishman album—a seminal work that TTB performed with many of the original players at LOCKN’ back in 2015.

Check out videos from the Tedeschi Trucks Band set at The Peach on Sunday along with photos from photographers A.J. Kinney, Andrew Hutchins, and David Gray. Revisit Live For Live Music‘s daily coverage of The Peach on Thursday and Friday.

Tedeschi Trucks Band – The Peach Music Festival – Set Preview – 7/2/23

Tedeschi Trucks Band – “Dreams” (Allman Brothers Band) – 7/2/23

[Video: Less Than Face Productions]

Tedeschi Trucks Band – “The Sky Is Crying” (Elmore James) – 7/2/23

[Video: Less Than Face Productions]

Tedeschi Trucks Band – “Beck’s Bolero” (Jeff Beck) – 7/2/23

[Video: Less Than Face Productions]

Tedeschi Trucks Band – The Peach Music Festival – Montage Mountain – Scranton, PA – 7/2/23

[Audio: Marc Geanoules]

Setlist: Tedeschi Trucks Band | The Peach Music Festival | Montage Mountain | Scranton, PA | 7/2/23

Set: Woman to Woman (Joe Cocker), It Hurt So Bad (Susan Tedeschi), Playing With My Emotions, Do I Look Worried, Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker) (The Rolling Stone), Part of Me, I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free (Billy Taylor), I Walk On Guilded Splinters (Dr. John), Dreams (Allman Brothers Band), Anyhow, The Sky Is Crying (Elmore James), Made Up Mind, Midnight In Harlem [1], I Want More > Beck’s Bolero (Jeff Beck)

Encore: Keep On Smilin’ (Wet Willie), Space Captain (Matthew Moore)

[1] Little Martha (Allman Brothers Band) tease during intro