The Wood Brothers just about stole the show on the Vermont stop of this summer’s ‘Wheels of Soul’ Tour. Illustrating how they’ve come to perfect the mix of their original material, the threesome were alternately entertaining and moving during the hour they occupied the stage on the Midway Lawn at the Champlain Valley Exposition.
Credit where credit is due, the Tedeschi Trucks Band are bringing blues to a wider audience than might avail itself of the elemental genre, but their twelve-piece ensemble too often sounded either tentative or desultory on this, only the second stop on the tour. Perhaps that’s because they’d yet to pick up steam, but it’s also necessary to take into account the process of accommodating new keyboardist Carey Frank’s as replacement for the recently hospitalized Kofi Burbridge.
Integration of a new musician into a tightly-knit ensemble such as this doesn’t always lend itself to abandoned playing, yet the most memorable moments of their two-hours plus on stage were the most intense, consisting of the guitarist extraordinaire Trucks engaged in a couple furious exchanges with the core band. In that regard, it was disappointing there were no guitar sit-ins at all as occurred last summer with Los Lobos and the North Mississippi Allstars on the bill.
Right after a near-heartrending version of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?”–for Allman Brothers fans clear homage to the late Gregg Allman and Butch Trucks—Trucks began “The Storm,” the grinding riff of which only became more vicious as drummers Tyler Greenwell and J.J. Johnson began to thrash away at their kits. A similar interval occurred near set’s end and, as with the earlier segment, bassist Tim Lefebvre was curiously removed from the mix: perhaps it was the exceedingly loud and overly trebly mix that precluded much of the bottom register at which he resides.
In comparison to far more expansive subsequent setlists on summer jaunt, the co-founder of the band was less prominent than in the past. And it wasn’t just hearing a sax solo in place of his slide work at one point, though that misarrangement sounded more than a little out of place; Susan Tedeschi all too often sounded strained, as on the B.B. King cover “How Blue Can You Get?” and more so during the encore of “Let’s Go Get Stoned,” borrowing from Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen (by way of The Coasters and Ray Charles). Similarly, Alecia Chakour’s singing spotlight front of stage couldn’t compare to vocalist Mike Mattison, a holdover from the Derek Trucks Band, arguably proffering the most soulful singing of the night on, not coincidentally, two culls from the DTV repertoire, “Chevrolet” and “I Wish I Knew.” The latter number followed closely on the heels of the other notable covers of the night, the set-closing motif from Santana’s “Soul Sacrifice,” preceded ever so briefly by Dickey Betts’ signature ABB instrumental “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” where the TTB horns finally attained the majesty to which they have ascended in the past two visits to the Green Mountains.
Sans the customarily careful pacing of their full-length performances, the Wood Brothers’ otherwise radiated all their usual low-key charm and deceptively intricate playing. Forget what Oliver Wood called his little brother’s ‘interpretative dancing:’ it was Chris’ double bass playing and harmonica work that meshed with Jano Rix’ multi-instrumental talents (including keyboards as well as percussion), not to mention the elder Wood sibling’s acoustic and electric guitars (often parlayed with a slide).
Adding in the gospel-tinged three-part harmonies, it was little wonder a whole different element of the audience slowly but surely moved toward the stage during this middle set of the three or that, as the Wood Brothers utilized their deep catalog of original songs to engage the audience, those enthusiasts led the group robust unfettered singalong on “Luckiest Man.” The trio was no less vigorous or involved during the lively take on “Shoofly Pie” early in their sixty-minute slot and their characteristic enthusiasm was equally infectious even during the inimitably wry “Postcards From Hell.”
As taciturn as the brothers were voluble, Hot Tuna drew a different but little less animated demographic up close to the stage as they opened the concert in bright sunlight. Venerable devotees of the group delighted in the threesome’s turn from melancholy melody like that of Jorma Kaukonen’s “Trial By Fire” to caustic, heavy electric blues such as “Rock Me Baby” and Muddy Waters’ “I Can’t Be Satisfied,” so the short, sharp set was no less potent for its truncated duration. As the trio headed to the home stretch, Jack Casady received as much loud, honest acclamation for his extended intro to “Funky #7” as his highly-animated body language early in the set; as the bassist bounced up and down he maintained his habitual soft touch on his instrument, for which drummer Justin Guip’s emphatic yet fluid timekeeping was true complement.
With the odd exception of artists’ merch tables missing (or at least not readily visible), the audience had ready access to all the amenities for the near-four hour event, thanks to the logically defined layout of the concert area behind the Expo Grandstand. As a result, the crackle or two from the sound system couldn’t seriously undermine the pleasure of being in attendance, especially because the balmy weather was practically a direct reflection of the music at its peaks. It’s safe to say more than a few of the five thousand or so in attendance will have summer 2017 defined by the ‘Wheels of Soul’ experience.
Photos by Ross Mickel/Bootleggers Beware Photography
