After a blistering performance in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on Thursday night, Tedeschi Trucks Band fully locked into the current leg of their winter tour with the first of four performances at the Warner Theatre. (The band will return to the Washington, DC venue tonight, on Saturday, February 1oth, as well as next weekend on February 16th and 17th following a quick two-night detour to Red Bank, NJ’s Count Basie Theatre on the 13th and 14th.) Marketed as an “Evening With TTB,” the twelve-piece ensemble led by Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks played two sets, as well as a cover-heavy two-song encore featuring classic tunes by Tom Petty and Joe Cocker.

After opening words by Susan, Derek Trucks Band’s “Don’t Let Me Slide” offered an energetic start to the show with its heavy opening guitar riffs and Tedeschi’s heartfelt and powerful vocals. “Laugh About It”, off the group’s 2016 Let Me Get By, came next, which saw Trucks open the tune with a transcendent bluesy guitar solo. Following a take on Leonard Cohen’s “Bird On The Wire”, during which Kofi Burbridge stood out with his ornamental offerings on the keys, Tedeschi Trucks Band picked up the pace with the feel-good original “Part Of Me” and Elmore James’ slinky “The Sky Is Crying”. To close out the first frame, following the Mike Mattison-sung original “Crying Over You” and a take on Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”, a drum solo highlighting the band’s drummers J. J. Johnson and Tyler Greenwell led into “Let Me Get By”.

Moving into the second frame of the evening, Tedeschi Trucks Band offered up a cover of the beloved classic “Statesboro Blues”. Three originals—”Don’t Know What It Means”, “Midnight In Harlem”, and “Just As Strange”, which spanned the group’s catalog from 2011’s Revelator to their most recent studio album, Let Me Get By—came next and accounted for a large portion of set two. As the band began to wind down the performance, they performed a cover of St. Louis Jimmy Oden’s “Goin’ Down Slow” ahead of the relatively new original “Shame”, which made its debut last summer and is expected to make an appearance of the band’s forthcoming new studio album, and the set-closing rendition of Billy Taylor’s “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free”.

For the encore, the group first offered up a cover of Tom Petty’s “You Don’t Know How It Feels”—a number the group has regularly worked into their setlist rotation since Petty’s tragic death in early October of last year—followed by a rendition of the group’s frequent cover of Joe Cocker’s “Space Captain”.

“You Don’t Know How It Feels” & “Space Captain”

[Video: edtyre1]

Setlist: Tedeschi Trucks Band | Warner Theatre | Washington, DC | 2/9/2018

Set One: Don’t Let Me Slide, Laugh About It, Bird On A Wire, Part Of Me, The Sky Is Crying, Crying Over You, Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright, Drum Solo > Let Me Get By

Set Two: Statesboro Blues, Don’t Know What It Means, Midnight In Harlem, Just As Strange, Goin’ Down Slow, Shame, I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free

Encore: You Don’t Know How It Feels, Space Captain

[Audio: edtyre2]

[Cover Photo: Josh Brick via DC Music Review]