The Tedeschi Trucks Band is something special. By now everyone should be aware of this Beauty and the Beast combination, Beauty as in Tedeschi’s incredibly soulful voice and Beast as in Truck’s unworldly guitarmenship, if you don’t know about it you need to get out from under that rock and listen up.

This match made in blues heaven and their massive musical R&B revue delivered a stunning knock out performance the other night to a mostly sold out Bayou Music Center and you should have been there.

Both Trucks and Tedeschi have been around the blues block for a while now and have each individually established themselves as two of the best stars of this genre today.  Not sure why it took so long for the two to start performing together since they have been married since around 2001. The bands early inception only occurred in 2010 and spawned a few performances; one show was Eric Clapton’s 2010 Crossroads Guitar Festival in Chicago which this writer personally witnessed and must say it was concrete evidence back then of pending greatness for this duo.

This was the bands first trip to Bayou Music Center having played the House of Blues here last year. With the venue filling up the show opened with A Band of Heathens, an Austin based group that HMR has followed for years and highly recommend everyone to see.

 As should be expected, Susan Tedeschi’s soulful and searing vocal barrage hit the audience with incredible intensity, her range swung from sweet and low to gut bucket in your face and back again.

Derek Trucks is a guitar force, his obvious influences of Allman Brothers and Eric Clapton with a slight touch of Middle Eastern sounding slide guitar work throughout the evening kept the crowd mesmerized and probably wondering about what it was they thought they just heard.

The band is an eleven member powerhouse of guitars, horns, vocals and keyboards that mesh together as one super music machine. Solos from just about every band member were featured throughout the show.

The evening was heavy with numbers from Tedeschi Trucks latest studio album, “Made Up Mind”. After hearing new songs from the album performed live such as “It’s So Heavy”‘, “All That I Need”, “Misunderstood”, “Made Up Mind”, “Idle Wind” and “The Storm” it’s easy to see why TTB won “Band of the Year” as well as “Rock Blues Album of the Year” at this year’s Blues Music Awards presented by the Blues Foundation in Memphis TN.  Susan Tedeschi added to the family trophy case by winning “Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year” as well.

The band featured three acoustic numbers that included “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning” an old traditional blues song by Blind Willie Johnson, a totally unexpected version of “You Got The Silver” by The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” which Tedeschi made her own.

Having mentioned the Eric Clapton influence earlier, TTB have not been shy about tackling Clapton numbers during their shows either. Named after Clapton’s Derek, as in “Derek and the Dominoes”, Derek Trucks and company shocked the audience with an unbelievable rendition of “Keep on Growing” from Clapton’s “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs” which for me was a personal highlight.

If you are the type of person who goes to concerts for the music and not the show then you need to take this one in the next time they come around. The Tedeschi Trucks Band is an all business; no frills and absolutely no non-sense troupe that does not need to play to the crowd or keep the audience entertained with made up stage personalities or extra flash. Their incredible music speaks for itself and performing it live seems to give this band all they need to drive their message home. They certainly proved it this night at Bayou Music Center.