In recent years the Sunshine Music Festival – held in Tampa Bay area and South Florida on back to back days in early January has grown to be something blues fans look forward to. Held in Vinoy Park – a public park that is literally on the bay in downtown St Pete – the festival mixes music with food trucks, vendors and a perfect view.
Keeping with a loose theme of blues music the festival does an excellent job of mixing acts that offer different take on the blues. Read: it isn’t act after act of someone playing guitar singing about hard times. We were able to catch the headliners of the main stage (Tedeschi Trucks Band) and second stage (Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue).
Trombone Shorty
Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue was an act we first heard about and saw at the Foo Fighters’ 20th Anniversary concert this past year (review here). Describing the band is quite hard – one minute the trombone and sax are creating vibes straight out of their home town of New Orleans the next they whipping the crowd into a frenzy with their cover of Green Day’s “Brainstew”. The hour long set quickly won over the crowd – not only can they put on a solid show the entire band proved they all have solids chops. It is an unique sound, but it works really well.
Tedeschi Trucks Band – Lead by the married guitar-slinging duo of Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi the 12-piece band is hard to place in one genre. One song they are channeling Truck’s Allman Brother Band experience while the next it is a soul inspired blues jam driven by the 3-piece brass section. Their performance nicely showcased the talent in the band runs deeper than the two leaders. Each song was carefully executed yet you can sense the excitement of the band and their passion for playing.
