A serendipitous night with Tedeschi Trucks in Syracuse

“This is just like Jacksonville,” Derek Trucks says. We’re looking out the window of a bar in downtown Syracuse, NY, admiring the architectural columns of the building across the street. “Jacksonville is the Syracuse of Florida. I love this city.” The guitar phenom from the GRAMMY Award-winning Tedeschi Trucks Band is holding a glass of $30/oz whiskey. 

He offers me a taste and displays the generous attitude he’s had all evening. 

Trucks is wearing a sandstone-colored leather jacket; I compliment it and he tells me it was provided as wardrobe for a photoshoot in Atlanta. He loved it and a couple months later, found it as a surprise under the Christmas tree from his wife, Susan Tedeschi. She’s also sitting at the bar.

Susan Tedeschi has the warmest, kindest eyes you can imagine… they make you feel important even if you aren’t. She just got out of surgery in the beginning of March because she’d been touring on a torn meniscus since January. This must have been, according to a learned doctor friend of mine at Upstate Medical, “extremely fucking painful”. She admits it, but says she’s feeling better now.

People came up to them all night, some taking too much of their time, but Derek and Susan were interested in everyone they met. They asked questions, they told stories, they shared of themselves. They’re famous musicians and humble souls, like all true greats.

Tedeschi Trucks murdered the show the next night to a packed house at the Syracuse OnCenter. A friend in the crowd (who has seen them six times) sweared that was the best of them he’s seen! Highlights were “Get What You Deserve”, “Anyhow” and a soulful rendition of James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain”. What a successful Syracuse trip for Tedeschi Trucks!

Photography by Tom Fucillo

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