Philzone.org - Philzone Phansite Community Discussion Board: Setlists and Reviews: Non GD Related Reviews: Archive: Derek Trucks - Susan Tedeschi - Fillmore 6-16-07

Reposted from one of the boards:

It's been a long wait since Derek Trucks and his phenomenal band has played San Francisco. Since Trucks' last appearance in Feb 06 at the Independant he's toured the world with Eric Clapton with San Jose being he last official tour date with old Slowhand. So it was no surprise that Derek and his wife Susan Tedeschi was afforded a hero's welcome at the very sold out Fillmore Auditorium this past Saturday night on their first double team shows headlining as The Soul Stew Review. And the fans were certainly rewarded for their patient wait too. Backed by Derek's world class band: drummer Yonrico Scott, keyboardist and flutist Kofi Burbridge, bassist Todd Smallie and percusionist Count MuButo, the band was augmented by saxophonist Ron Hallaway and Derek's brother Duane on drums. From the opening notes of "I'll Find My Way," it was evident that the night was going to be very special. Susan Tedeschi has some rather big pipes for such a petite lady and she can sure play a mean blues guitar as she demonstated playing slashing rips against her husband's high flying slide guitar. The 2 1/2 show was all killer with little or no filler as Trucks and Tedeschi pulled all the stops out. Derek wasn't too shy to pull out the Clapton nuggets either that reminded all that old Slowhand had revamped his setlists just to accomodate the gifted slide player. Derek and The Dominos "To Tell The Truth," and "Anyday," the Allman Brothers Band "Stand Back," and a surprise rendition of the Clapton era Delaney and Bonnie classic "Going Home," were just some of the highlights of this stellar show. The sit down acoustic portion found Derek playing dobro accompanying Tedeschi during "Walking Blues," and the Rolling Stones, "You Got The Silver." DTB vocalist Mike Mattison whose band Scrapomatic opened the evening added his throaty soulful vocals to Tedeschi's sultry blusy wail though much of later portion of the show. But it was Derek Trucks' evoctive soulful slide guitar work which brought the house down time and time again. The young guitarslinger proved his mettle as both a virtuoso instrumentalist and bandleader especially during a take through John Coltrane's arrangement of "My Favorite Things." By the time they closed with the late Paul Pena's "Gotta Move Away From Here," which was dedicated to late blind Bay Area blues musician who played with Trucks on his last visit to The Fillmore, everybody in attendance realized that they had just witnessed something very special.

I hope that the Soul Stew Revival makes it's way back here again. And a whole lot sooner than a year from now too.

The Susan-Derek combo seemed to bring out a more laid-back audience in Denver (6-9-07) than the usual ABB crowd, tho the latter remains the best long-standing audience in the biz. Lots of spontaneous eruptions from the audience at Denver show, not always in response to a solo, just the joy of it all.

Soul Stew Revival could tour as a regular thing (prob. in rotation, of course, w/ABB and DTB) and I'd be down.

This show was phucking awesome, Anyday to cap it off was so sweet - they need to keep this band together, because it would be totally huge.