“I love you in a place where there’s no space and time,” Susan Tedeschi sang to a spellbound Madison Square Garden late in Friday night’s Tedeschi Trucks Band Garden Party. Performed alongside a skeleton crew of Gabe Dixon and special guest Lukas Nelson, the striking encore cover of Leon Russell‘s “A Song For You” seemed to pack the many emotions surrounding the band’s MSG debut into one simple phrase.
Tedeschi, Derek Trucks, and company have held venerable space and autumn time in New York City for years with their annual Beacon Theatre residencies, which routinely featured high-profile special guests like Trey Anastasio and Norah Jones and have become a treasured tradition in TTB’s universe. This year, the band opted to forgo a long fall run at the Beacon in favor a one-and-done blowout at the Garden—a new space at a meaningful time for the 12-piece powerhouse and its devoted fans—but space and time alike seemed to fall away as Susan and Lukas sang a song for Leon, the cavernous arena rendered tender and consoling.
Throughout the night, as the lineup expanded and contracted with a Beacon residency’s worth of guests—Anastasio and Jones included—Tedeschi Trucks Band commanded the Garden with veteran grace and artistry, like they’d been there all along. That’s the thing that makes this band so special; even in a monumental space at a sentimental time, it was the “love,” above all, that thousands of fans felt on Friday night at MSG.
Lukas Nelson + POTR kicked off the night with an opening set of their own. Showing off rock n’ roll grit in their country milieu, Lukas and the band got fans’ blood pumping with their energetic stage presence and affable demeanor (Nelson introduced “Carolina”, his 2010 track about loving the state in the American South, by referring to it as a song about “South America”).
Tedeschi Trucks Band took the stage at 9:00 and proceeded to hold court for two and a half hours straight. Time-tested staple “Anyhow” got things moving, Tedeschi setting the tone for a guitar-focused evening with a searing solo. Her towering presence swelled to fill the Garden as she led the way through I Am The Moon favorite “Playing With My Emotions”, a gorgeous array of horizontal LED strips and rows of colored spotlights illuminating the stage while primary-colored hues washed over the crowd from above.
After Susan acknowledged the “beautiful and special” moment for the band and gave a shoutout to Derek’s mother, who was in attendance and celebrating her 70th birthday, Dixon led the way through “Ain’t That Something”, its “and the rain is pouring down” lyrics earning knowing recognition from an NYC crowd that spent the morning weathering heavy rain and flood conditions.
Backing vocalist Alecia Chakour and saxophonist Kebbi Williams got some spotlight next on “Part of Me” before Mike Mattison stepped to center stage to lead a New York-appropriate cover of The Rolling Stones’s “Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)”. After Susan and Gabe serenaded the skies with “I Am The Moon”, the band began to thin out for what would become a thundering, 21-minute journey through winding instrumental “Pasaquan” featuring just drummers Isaac Eady and Tyler Greenwell, bassist Brandon Boone, and Dixon with an inspired Derek Trucks at the controls.
The first guest of the night arrived next as Norah Jones—”a mom and a badass in everything she does,” per Susan—took the stage on piano to Tedeschi’s left for a duet on John Hiatt‘s “Have A Little Faith In Me”, then stuck around to assist the band on keys and vocals for a cover they had initially conceived for the Beacon, “You Wreck Me”, by another North Florida home-teamer, the late Tom Petty.
A wistful Kebbi Williams saxophone intro heralded the obligatory NYC rendition of signature TTB track “Midnight In Harlem”, and the band met the magnitude of its surroundings with commensurate emotion. Soulful vocalizing from Mark Rivers highlighted the “Made Up Mind” that followed, and the increasingly reliable combo of “I Want More” and Jeff Beck‘s “Beck’s Bolero” ensured that no momentum waned as the show moved into its home stretch.
Following one more moment of Susan-led serenity—a the classic TTB pairing of John Prine‘s “Angel From Montgomery” and the Grateful Dead‘s “Sugaree”—the band brought out its final guest of the night, Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio, a man well acquainted with both the musicians of Tedeschi Trucks Band and the rarified air of Madison Square Garden. In a move no one saw coming, Anastasio led the group on vocals and guitar through the TTB debut of The Who deep cut “The Seeker”, then stuck around for a cathartic, “Bell Bottom Blues”, a familiar song from their storied 2019 Derek and the Dominos cover set at LOCKN’. Finally, Lukas Nelson joined the fray alongside Trey to add some extra gas to an inferno of guitar virtuosity on another climactic Derek and the Dominos selection, “Layla”, Trucks sporting a mile-wide grin throughout.
With the arena already buzzing as the crowd awaited the encore, New York fans were treated with some news that eased the bittersweet notion that The Garden Parties had replaced this year’s Beacon residency: Tedeschi Trucks Band will return to the Beacon in late February and early March of 2024 for a three-night run.
Related: Phish & Derek Trucks: A Brief History Of A Long Collaborative Relationship [Videos/Audio]
Susan, Lukas, and Gabe were the first to retake the stage for their “A Song For You”. The core 12-piece TTB lineup offered its last licks with a weighty “Soul Sweet Song” before all three of the night’s guests—Anastasio, Jones, and Nelson—joined in for one final explosion of sound on a medley of Sly & The Family Stone‘s “Sing a Simple Song” and “I Want to Take You Higher”.
Whether higher or lower, complex composition or simple song, extra friends or stripped-back solitude, the Beacon or the Garden, the results are the same. Tedeschi Trucks Band loves you in a place where there’s no space or time. And we love them back.
Below, listen to a full audio recording, watch a selection of crowd-shot videos, and view photos from the first-ever Tedeschi Trucks Band show at Madison Square Garden. Scroll down to view the full setlist and a gallery of photos from the night via Andrew Blackstein.
Tedeschi Trucks Band w/ Trey Anastasio, Norah Jones, Lukas Nelson – Madison Square Garden – 9/29/23 – Full Audio
[Audio: Alex Leary/vwmule]
Tedeschi Trucks Band – “Pasaquan” – 9/29/23
[Video: sgibson818]
Susan Tedeschi & Norah Jones – “Have a Little Faith in Me” (John Hiatt) – 9/29/23
[Video: themeboudin]
Tedeschi Trucks Band w/ Trey Anastasio – “The Seeker” (The Who) – 9/29/23
[Video: themeboudin]
Tedeschi Trucks Band w/ Lukas Nelson – “A Song For You” (Leon Russell) – 9/29/23
[Video: themeboudin]
Tedeschi Trucks Band w/ Trey Anastasio, Norah Jones, Lukas Nelson – “Sing a Simple Song”/”I Want to Take You Higher” (Sly & The Family Stone) – 9/29/23
[Video: themeboudin]
Setlist: Tedeschi Trucks Band | Madison Square Garden | New York, NY | 9/29/23
Set: Anyhow, Playing With My Emotions, Ain’t That Something, Part of Me, Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker) (The Rolling Stones), I Am the Moon, Pasaquan, Have a Little Faith in Me (John Hiatt) [1] [2], You Wreck Me (Tom Petty) [1] [2], Midnight in Harlem, Made Up Mind, I Want More > Beck’s Bolero (Jeff Beck), Angel From Montgomery (John Prine) > Sugaree (Grateful Dead), The Seeker (The Who) [2] [3], Bell Bottom Blues (Derek and the Dominos) [3], Layla (Derek and the Dominos) [3] [4]
Encore: A Song For You (Leon Russell) [5], Soul Sweet Song, Sing A Simple Song (Sly & The Family Stone) [6] > I Want to Take You Higher (Sly & The Family Stone) [6]
[1] Norah Jones on keys, vocals
[2] First time played by Tedeschi Trucks Band
[3] Trey Anastasio on guitar, vocals
[4] Lukas Nelson on guitar
[5] Lukas Nelson on vocals; with Susan (vocals) and Gabe (keys) only
[6] Trey Anastasio on guitar, Lukas Nelson on guitar, Norah Jones on keys
