Artpark Mainstage Theatre performance was profoundly musical and emotionally charged

By Jeff Miers

Miers on Music is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Above photo of the Tedeschi Trucks Band by Michael Lee Jackson.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve judged the quality of a concert by the depth of emotion it can summon in me, as much as by the level of musicianship on the stage – though it must be said that these two factors are often inseparable. 

If I find myself crying at one point during a performance and beaming with unfettered joy at the next, I know that the music is working its unparalleled magic on me. 

Apparently, I’m far from alone, as this blurb from some dude named McCartney, regarding an about-to-be-published study by Dr. Daniel Levitin, makes plain. 

“For many years I have wondered why a bunch of frequencies organized into a piece of music has the ability, even without words, to make the listener cry and become emotional,” Sir Paul writes. “Although I know this happens to me and many people, I have often wondered how this can be. Dr. Levitin in this latest book, I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine, has some fascinating insights into this great phenomenon.”

Based on this criteria, Tuesday’s Tedeschi Trucks Band gig at Artpark in Lewiston, NY, ticked all the boxes. 

The performance offered by this 12-piece ensemble was simply sublime, marrying elements of a wide range of idioms, among them soul, funk, blues, the classical music of India, Latin jazz, rock, folk, and African drum music. But what tied all of this together was an underlying quest for transcendence, communicated by the band members as a deep emotional commitment, not just to the material at hand, but to the very idea that music can elevate, inspire, unite.  

Interestingly, for me at least, was the fact that I’d spent the day prior to the TTB show working with a group of kids, and some of the most talented musicians I’m blessed to call colleagues, helping to conduct a ‘Band Camp’ for young musicians, an experience I’ve found to be immeasurably rewarding. I dropped a text to one of those colleagues when I returned home from the TTB concert. 

“We gotta bring some of that back to the kids,” I wrote. “That represented everything I believe in at once. Work, love, respect, listening. And hope.” 

In a world of massive pop productions, choreographed dance moves, and bombast, it’s useful to be reminded that music’s true power has somewhere between little and nothing to do with flash and spectacle. And so it was that I found myself overwhelmed with emotion and openly, involuntarily weeping a mere 5 songs into the Tedeschi Trucks Band’s set.

The occasion was the band’s take on Bob Dylan’s “Lord Protect My Child,” sung with unflinching investment by Susan Tedeschi, and played with immense power and authority by the ensemble. “The whole world is asleep/You can look at it and weep/Few things you find are worthwhile/And though I don’t ask for much/No material things to touch/Lord, protect my child,” was the verse that crushed me, aided by Tedeschi’s incredibly emotional delivery, and underscored by the fact that I have these thoughts daily, as I’m sure every invested parent does.

Man, it hit me like a train. 

By this point, the band – guitarist Derek Trucks, guitarist/vocalist Tedeschi, keyboardist Gabe Dixon, drummers Tyler Greenwell and Isaac Eady, bassist Brandon Boone, saxophonist Kebbi Williams, trumpeter Ephraim Owens, trombonist Elizabeth Lea, singers Mike Mattison, Alecia Chakour and Mark Rivers – had already slain us with the deep blues strut of “Learn How to Love,” the lilting 6/8 sway of “La Di Da,” the Delta stomp of “Anyhow,” and the 70s soul-redolent “Crying Over You,” the first of several lead vocal turns from Mattison. (He’d offer an incredibly funky “Chevrolet” and a beautifully reworked take on Prince’s “1999” later in the set.) 

That an ensemble of this size, with all its attendant power and muscle, could sound so pristine and dynamic is a testament to both the fine acoustic properties of Artpark’s MainStage Theatre and the skill-sets of the sound techs on the gig that night. 

The show went from strength to strength, and of course, so many searing, deeply emotive guitar solos from Trucks offered high point after high point – I don’t believe in the idea of “best” when it comes to music, but if I did, well, the list of electric guitarists in this category would most certainly include this humble and incredibly gifted man – but it should be noted that TTB is a band rooted in deep listening and mutual respect, and every member contributed equally to the profoundly tasty musical gumbo. 

The band’s tour routing – which included an August 16 show at CMAC in Canandaigua and an August 17 stop in Burgettstown, PA – meant that they were here in town with some time off previous to the Artpark show. That turned into quite a blessing for fans here in Buffalo, when members of Margo Price’s band and TTB arranged for a free-flowing (and free to the public) show at the Sportsmen’s Tavern on Monday, August 19.

What a beautiful soulful performance this ensemble – which found 8 musicians on the stage, at some points – offered the house, which was packed to the rafters with members of the music (and music-loving) community, as well as Trucks and Tedeschi, who greeted fans and chilled out at a table on the Sportsmen’s first floor, taking in their friends’ performance along with the rest of us.

Not an evening we’ll soon forget, to say the least. 

Here’s the full Artpark setlist…

The Tedeschi Trucks Band
Artpark, Lewiston, NY
8/20/2024

• Learn How to Love
• La Di Da
• Anyhow
• Crying Over You
• Lord Protect My Child
• Voodoo Woman
• Last Night in the Rain
• 1999
• Keep on Growing
• Just As Strange
• Chevrolet
• I Want More
• Soul Sacrifice
• That Did It
• Bound For Glory
  Encore: (With Margo Price and her band) 
• Don’t Think Twice, it’s Alright
• Let’s go Get Stoned

Miers on Music is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.