Photo by Dino Perrucci

On Mar. 10, Derek Trucks – along with Warren Haynes, Oteil Burbridge, Jaimoe, Reese Wynans, Duane Trucks, Marc Quinones and Chuck Leavell – performed at Madison Square Garden as The Brothers. The show was a celebration of 50 years of The Allman Brothers Band. It also marked one of the last large-scale concerts held in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic; two days later, on Mar. 12, New York State banned gatherings of 500 people or more.

That very night, Trucks, his wife and musical partner Susan Tedeschi and many more performed during the Love Rocks NYC benefit show at The Beacon Theatre in New York City. The show had a mandated limited entry; only about three hundred people were in the audience.

In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Trucks discusses playing both before and after the large gatherings ban, what it meant to him to celebrate the Allmans, Tedeschi Trucks Band summer tour and how he is handling social distancing.

“When we first got to New York about a week before, there were no restrictions and no one was really thinking about [the virus] too much,” Trucks said regarding worries about performing The Brothers’ show. “I was being OCD with Purell, but you eat out; you’re on the road and that’s what you do.”

“But now a thousand things go through your head — one being, ‘Shit, should we have done that?’ he continued. “The demographic of the Allman Brothers is kind of a prime candidate [for the virus]. So that felt a little weird. But information was rolling out at such a trickle that it was hard to make sense of anything.”

On whether or not they considered canceling or postponing, Trucks said, “I certainly was floating it around in my head, but it wasn’t my call. It was just starting to dawn on everyone that day that this isn’t something to fuck around with.”

“You’re of two minds, he continued. “If you postpone six or eight months, you never know how it’s going to be between now and then. But it also felt like one of the last moments for a long time when people would be able to suspend reality and let go.”

Regarding performing during Love Rocks NYC on Mar. 12: “That was the day they shut down, no gatherings over 500 people. So they did the show just for the webcast with maybe 200 or 300 guests in the audience. It felt so strange to look at over the Beacon and see a few hundred people dancing and having a good time but keeping their distance. It was an odd scene. That one felt like the last party before the end of the world.”

When asked about the status of TTB’s upcoming summer tour, Trucks said that as of now, no plans had changed. “We don’t have anything scheduled until late June. And we’ll make a decision when the time comes,” he said. “We’ll have our asses handed to us if we don’t do the summer and fall tours. We have a 12-piece band and a lot of employees and it would be a hit. We’re always of the mindset that the show must go on.”

“But this is one of the first times when that’s just not possible or it’s the wrong thing to do,” he continued. “Usually it’s the right thing to do: When there’s a disaster, you think, ‘What do we do, play? Fuck yeah — people need it. They need something that’s not stressful and awful.’ But this is a situation where you’re putting people at risk by putting on a concert. It’s a different calculus.”

Trucks also further downplayed any plans to play more shows as The Brothers. “[The show] was even better than I had hoped, and I had pretty high hopes,” he said. “But my feeling is, it’s special because it was a one-off. I don’t know how long you could run down the road playing that music before it became something else. That legacy means so much to me and our family and I don’t want to do anything to diminish it.”

Read the full interview with Rolling Stone here.