Sunday night at Hollywood Casino Amphitheater was a reminder of what a co-headline bill can be when both bands actually belong on the same stage. Tedeschi Trucks Band and Alabama Shakes arrived in St. Louis as the second stop of a four-show pairing, and they treated the packed pavilion and lawn like a shared living room of blues, soul, and Southern rock.
The venue posted a 7:30 p.m. start, with Tedeschi Trucks Band opening and Alabama Shakes closing. Parking opened at 5:30 and gates at 6:30. By the time the 12-piece TTB ensemble hit the stage, the amphitheater had the feel of a late-summer church service that never quite settled down.
Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks still run one of the most complete live units on the road. The group opened with “Made Up Mind,” then moved through new-era material from Future Soul, including “I Got You,” “What in the World,” the title track, and “Fall In.” Those songs sat comfortably beside the band’s older muscle: “Let Me Get By,” a deep “Midnight in Harlem,” and a swaggering “Got My Mo-Jo Working.”
The horn section and dual-drum engine gave the set its width. Trucks, as usual, said more with a slide than most guitarists say with a speech. Tedeschi’s voice cut through the outdoor mix without strain, especially on “Anyhow.” The band also dropped a Sly & the Family Stone pairing of “You Can Make It If You Try” into “Everyday People,” a sequence they would expand with Alabama Shakes members two nights later in Grand Rapids. In St. Louis it was still all TTB, and it worked.
A late-set “Ohio” carried the expected weight. The closer was the real local wink: “I Want More” into Jeff Beck’s “Beck’s Bolero,” with an extended tease of Chicago’s “25 or 6 to 4.” Chicago and Styx were booked at the same venue the following night. The crowd caught it. The band knew they would.
It was a tight, generous opening set — not a warmup, and not a victory lap. Just a working band doing the thing it does better than almost anyone.
Alabama Shakes took the stage around 9:30 p.m. and played until 11. After years away and a reunion that finally produced new music, the band sounded less like a nostalgia act than a group with unfinished business. Their third studio album, I Must Be Dreaming, was days from release. Sunday night was part victory lap, part preview.
They opened with “Time,” one of the new songs, then “Guess Who,” before dropping into the catalog that made them: “Rise to the Sun,” “Shoegaze,” “Hang Loose,” “This Feeling,” and “Hold On.” Howard’s voice remains the event. It can go from a hush to a full-throated roar in a bar, and the amphitheater sound system actually let that range land. “I Feel Hope Coming,” “Garden,” “Future People,” “Dunes,” and “Another Life” kept the new material in the conversation without burying the hits.
“Don’t Wanna Fight” and “Sound & Color” pulled the night back to 2015, when this band felt like it might swallow the whole genre whole. Heath Fogg and Zac Cockrell still give Howard a foundation that is leaner than TTB’s orchestra and just as stubborn. The Shakes do not jam for the sake of jamming. They lock in, then Howard detonates.
The later Cincinnati date would feature Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks sitting in on “Time.” That collaboration had not yet happened in Maryland Heights. What St. Louis got instead was two complete sets from two complete bands, played in the right order, with no sense that either was punching a clock.
On paper this pairing was obvious: two Southern-rooted groups with deep catalogs, real singers, and guitarists who treat tone like theology. In practice it was better than obvious. TTB brought the big-band gospel and improvisational stretch. Alabama Shakes brought the concentrated punch. The crowd moved between both without having to change languages.
Hollywood Casino Amphitheater has its familiar summer-night complaints — parking, the lawn sightlines, the long walk out — but the music was not one of them. For a Sunday in late August, St. Louis got two headliners who still sound like they mean it.
I Must Be Dreaming arrives August 28. Tedeschi Trucks Band continues the Future Soul tour after wrapping the Alabama Shakes run in Cincinnati. If Sunday was the standard, the rest of the week had a high bar to clear.
