On Wednesday night, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, and their streamlined Fireside LIVE band lineup returned to Eatontown, NJ for their second of two nights at Suneagles Golf Club‘s makeshift socially-distanced venue.
The Tedeschi Trucks Band has been a regular visitor to Red Bank, NJ’s Hackensack Meridian Health Theatre (formerly known as Count Basie Theater) since the group’s inception in 2010. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Count Basie Center for the Arts teamed up with Suneagles to create an intimate outdoor experience that matches the Basie’s high standards with the Concerts on the Green at Suneagles Golf Club series.
Tickets for this week’s two Tedeschi Trucks Fireside LIVE shows at Suneagles were sold as a tables, clustered pods of four, providing distanced seating for under 1,000 people. A massive tent was erected to shade and contain the acoustics behind the quaint 19th Hole Tavern. Tedeschi Trucks immediately sold out the back-to-back shows and gave attendees the chance to enjoy the Grammy-winning outfit perform while eating dinner after a sunny round of golf.
The ongoing Fireside LIVE tour features a stripped-down cast of characters with Susan Tedeschi and guitar virtuoso Derek Trucks leading the charge centerstage. Keyboardist Gabe Dixon takes his seat on one wing, while bassist Brandon Boone and vocalist Mike Mattison flank the opposite side. In the rear, Tyler “Falcon” Greenwell chisels away on his drum set.
On Wednesday night, Susan immediately commanded the attention of the cabaret-style crowd as she strode onstage in her red cocktail dress and heels and kicked off what would amount to two sets of scorching music.
To open the show, Susan and Mattison whooped up a gospel-style call-and-response for a cover of The Beatles’ Let It Be track, “I’ve Got a Feeling”. The poised performance of “Do I Look Worried?” that followed featured Trucks’ first extended solo of the night.
Moving on to a track from the band’s new live tribute album, Layla Revisited, Tedeschi Trucks offered up a cover of Derek and the Dominos’ “Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad?” which brought another sizzling guitar solo from Trucks and a scintillating segment from Dixon.
After thanking the audience, Susan displayed her vocal strength with “It’s So Heavy” before Mike Mattison took the reins on Bessie Smith’s “Gin House Blues”, his gravelly voice possessing just the right texture needed to capture the primitive power of Bessie’s voice.
To round out the set, Derek and Susan shredded back and forth during an extended jam on “Anyhow” before moving into and ecstatic “Bound for Glory” that started with a “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” tease and ended with a nimble Gabe Dixon organ solo.
Returning for the second set, Mike Mattison stepped up to the microphone to dish out a hearty serving of live Derek Trucks Band staple “Down Don’t Bother Me” before Susan took the helm for TTB’s “Laugh About It.” To follow, Susan shredded the unholy Hell out of her own solo composition, “Just Won’t Burn”, before entrancing the crowd with her moving performance on “Shame”. The rest of the musicians stepped aside to let Brandon Boone and Tyler Greenwell tactfully deconstruct the melodies before Derek and Susan stepped in one-by-one to restore the song’s structure with precision and grace.
After a quick pause, the band picked up almost immediately into a soaring “Midnight in Harlem” that cut like a surgeon’s scalpel. Mike Mattison played acoustic guitar and sang harmonies on the fan-favorite composition that he humbly co-wrote with Trucks.
From there, Susan switched guitars out to her teal Telecaster for back-to-back, blues-infused covers of Delaney & Bonnie’s “Coming Home” and Bobby “Blue” Bland’s “That Did It”. To wrap up the second set, Tedeschi Trucks broke down and built up “I Want More” several times with Gabe Dixon and Derek Trucks jamming together in layers before Susan jumped in and hammered the whole thing home. Like a bowl of home cookin’, this spicy jam had zesty flavor and left the entire audience, appropriately, wanting more…
…and more they would get! Tedeschi Trucks returned to perform another Susan Tedeschi composition, “The Feeling Music Brings”, which has come into its own as a climactic closer on this tour.
To this day, I still haven’t figured out precisely why the band treats the NJ crowd so well, but I am definitely not complaining. It seems every time they come around they are offering extraordinary treats that people chase all tour.
The Fireside LIVE tour has a day off on Thursday before returning Tedeschi Trucks hits Vermont and Martha’s Vineyard this weekend. For a full list of upcoming our dates, head here.
Scroll down to check out the setlist, full audio, and select videos from Wednesday night’s Tedeschi Trucks show in Eatontown.
Setlist: Tedeschi Trucks | Suneagles Golf Club | Eatontown, NJ | 7/21/21
Set One: I’ve Got A Feeling (The Beatles), Do I Look Worried, Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad? (Derek and the Dominos), It’s So Heavy, Gin House Blues (Bessie Smith), Anyhow, Bound For Glory
Set Two: Down Don’t Bother Me (Derek Trucks Band), Laugh About It, Just Won’t Burn (Susan Tedeschi), Shame, Midnight In Harlem, That Did It (Bobby “Blue” Bland), I Want More > Soul Sacrifice (Santana)
Encore: Comin’ Home (Delaney & Bonnie)
Tedeschi Trucks – “Gin House Blues” (Bessie Smith) – 7/21/21
Tedeschi Trucks – “Bound For Glory” – 7/21/21
Tedeschi Trucks – “Shame” – 7/21/21
[Video: edtyre1]
Tedeschi Trucks – “Comin’ Home” (Delaney & Bonnie) – 7/21/21
[Video: edtyre1]
Tedeschi Trucks: Fireside LIVE – Suneagles Golf Club – 7/21/21 – Full Audio
[Audio: edtyre2]