How do you top headlining the TD Garden? For Tedeschi Trucks Band, you sell out the MGM Music Hall and Boch Center Wang Theatre the same week.
After playing the Garden in 2023, Tedeschi Trucks Band return to Boston next month with an Oct. 1 MGM date and a two-night stand at the Wang Oct. 4 and 5 – tickets for the Oct. 5 show are still available. With TTB set to thrill about 13,000 fans, the Herald chatted with Boston-native Susan Tedeschi about some of her favorite Boston music spots, past, present, and future.
South Shore Yacht Clubs
“I literally played yacht clubs as a 13-year-old,” Tedeschi told the Herald. “Trying to rent PAs, and get gigs, and play for any kind of people that would come out.” Back in the early ’80s, Tedeschi hadn’t yet discovered the blues, but was taking on everything else — rock, pop, country, soul, gospel. A few years later, she enrolled at Berklee College of Music and dove into the club scene playing everywhere from Toad to Harper’s Ferry to the Plough & Stars.
The House of Blues
No, not the behemoth on Lansdowne Street, but the House of Blues original location in Harvard Square. The OG HOB opened in 1992 shortly after Tedeschi graduated Berklee. She had just gotten deep into the blues, picking up classic LPs from Cambridge shop Stereo Jack’s. Tedeschi started helping out the woman booking the club. “She was used to booking rock acts so she’d ask, ‘Who is this guy Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown?’ I said, ‘Oh, you need him.’ ” Not only did Tedeschi advise the booker on blues legends, but she sat in at a pre-opening bash. “I got to play with James Cotton the very first night before it was open to the public… I was the first female singer to sing at the House of Blues.”
Cambridge Music
Tedeschi’s signature guitar is a “Caribbean Mist” Tele. A bit of practicality and a bit of magic put the instrument in her hands. In Tedeschi’s early bands, a lot of her collaborators were playing Strats and Gibson ES-335. She wanted a guitar with a different tone to help her sound cut through. “I found that one guitar at Cambridge Music in Porter Square one day, went home, thought about it, had a dream about it,” she said. “I said, ‘If it’s still there, I’m getting it.’ And it was still there.” Now covered in the signatures of her blues heroes, the guitar remains a favorite of hers
MGM Music Hall, Wang Theatre… Fenway Park
TTB has never played MGM or Wang. But growing up in and around Boston, Tedeschi knows all the old clubs and theaters — she saw Bob Dylan at the Wang. She’s excited to check off a few more places on her list, especially two big rooms that are very different from one another. “(The Wang) is a place where you can make a really nice, diverse set… You can really hear the dynamic there,” she said. “Somewhere like MGM, you’re going to want to rock it. If it’s general admission and people are standing, you want people to dance and have a good time.” With the Garden, MGM, and the Wang gigs bound for the setlist archive, it’s time to look ahead to the real fantasy date. “Fenway is the next place we will conquer,” she said with a laugh. “We’ve been talking about it for years, and it needs to happen next year or the year after.”
For tickets and details, visit tedeschitrucksband.com
