Derek Trucks has played Connecticut around 50 times in the past 25 years and is back again on Aug. 23 and 24 for back-to-back shows at Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater in Bridgeport as part of the Tedeschi Trucks Band . From 1999 to 2009, Trucks came with his own Derek Trucks Band, which he founded in 1995 and went on hiatus in 2010 after nine albums.
From 2008 until now, he has also been playing with the Tedeschi Trucks Band he runs with his wife, vocalist/guitarist Susan Tedeschi. Overlapping with those acts, Trucks was a guitarist with the Allman Brothers Band (for whom his uncle Butch Trucks had been the original drummer) from 1999 to 2014. You can find quite a few nationally known rock acts who make a point of visiting Connecticut every year or two, but Trucks’ bands have a few distinctions: They constantly switch up setlists and add play unexpected songs, and they’ve played a wide variety of different venues for a range of different audiences.
What bands can you name that have felt equally at home at Toad’s Place, The Webster, Mohegan Sun Wolf Den, Conte’s Fish Market, Ridgefield Playhouse, Stamford Palace, Waterbury Palace, Xfinity Theatre, Simsbury Meadows Performing Arts Center, Warner Theatre in Torrington, the Westville Music Bowl, several Gathering of the Vibes festivals and the Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater? The only big gap between Trucks’ visits was during the COVID pandemic shutdown, when the Tedeschi Trucks Band was scheduled to play a grand open.