Derek Trucks rocks Luminato

I was all settled in to spend my Sunday evening at the Varsity office when I received an urgent message from my friend Jesse: The Derek Trucks Band was playing a free show for Luminato. He made it clear that I would be making a grave mistake by not attending:

This is one of the best bands in the world!

Hmm. A free concert with one of the greatest slide guitar players in the world?

He might have surpassed Duane Allman. Derek is 6 years older than Duane was when he died.

He’s a complicated man.

Derek Trucks is Duane Allman meets Ravi Shankar meets John Coltrane

Ravi Shankar eh?

Derek studied Indian music at some school in cali that’s the only american music school that teaches that stuff.

He summarized.

Derek Trucks is the messiah.

As a bonus, he mentioned that Jerry Douglas might be around.

He’s the best dobro player of all time. Nobody would argue that.

Fine, fine. Sold. I biked down to Dundas Square.

Did the show live up to his hype? Simply, yes.

Here’s an absolutely atrocious recording of Derek Trucks soloing (I was standing next to the amps so it was just too much for my poor iPhone mic to handle):