Heartfelt Teddy Swims and Tedeschi Trucks Band Light Up “Feelin’ Alright” at Rock Hall 2025
Some performances don’t just sound good, they feel like a door swings open in your chest. That’s what happens when Teddy Swims joins forces with the Tedeschi Trucks Band to tear into Joe Cocker’s “Feelin’ Alright” during the Rock Hall 2025 Induction. It’s loud, loose, and lived-in, the kind of moment where you can hear a crowd smile. And from the first shout to the last repeat of “myself,” it plays like a sing-along that also doubles as a confession.
The setup is simple, and that’s part of the magic. A voice announces, “Please welcome Teddy Swims,” and right away you get what you came for: “Everybody [cheering].” No slow warm-up, no polite applause, just that instant rush that tells you the room is ready to be taken somewhere.
The band kicks in and the performance starts moving like a car that’s already rolling downhill. The music cues keep flashing through the moment, that steady [music] pulse that makes everything feel like it’s happening in one breath. Teddy comes in with that first line, “Seems I’ve got to have a change of scene,” and it lands like a statement, not a lyric. Like he’s telling you where his head is at before he even starts singing.
What makes the kickoff hit is how fast it turns personal. This isn’t a careful, museum-style tribute. It’s a live-wire kind of cover, the kind where the singer sounds like he’s chasing the feeling in real time, and the band is right there, pushing air behind him.
Even if you’ve heard “Feelin’ Alright” a hundred times, this entrance makes it feel brand new for the night. The cheers don’t fade into the background either. They hang over the groove, like the crowd is part of the rhythm section.
The Rock Hall setting adds its own electricity. It’s a place that asks performers to honor the past while still sounding like themselves, and that’s exactly what happens here. You’re hearing a Joe Cocker classic, but you’re also hearing Teddy Swims in the way he stretches the emotion and talks to the room, and you’re hearing the Tedeschi Trucks Band in the way the song keeps its muscle and motion.
The audience response captured in the moment says plenty on its own. “Everybody [cheering]” is the headline, and it keeps echoing through the performance, even when the transcript shifts back to [music]. The energy reads as unanimous, the kind of crowd that doesn’t need to be convinced because they’re already in the palm of the performance.
This is the type of live clip that spreads fast because it has that simple promise: if you press play, you’ll feel better. Not because it pretends everything’s fine, but because it turns the mess into music, and it does it with people who clearly know how to ride a groove together.
Teddy Swims approaches “Feelin’ Alright” like it’s a story he’s telling for the first time. He doesn’t treat the lyrics like museum glass. He grabs them, shakes them a little, and lets the rough edges show.
The standout move is how he balances swagger and vulnerability. He can hit “Feel all right” like a victory lap, then turn around and admit, “I’m not feeling too good myself,” and it doesn’t feel like a contradiction. It feels like the point.
Even his spoken moments, like “Don’t you get too lost here,” make the performance warmer. It’s the sound of someone staying connected to the room instead of disappearing into a rehearsed routine.
The Tedeschi Trucks Band gives the performance its backbone. The song needs a groove that won’t quit, because the vocal is constantly shifting between singing, speaking, and repeating phrases until they catch fire. The band keeps the track steady so Teddy can take those risks.
You can also feel the band’s live instincts in the way the performance breathes. The transcript’s frequent [music] markers hint at how much is happening between the lines, those little stretches where the instruments carry the mood and build the next vocal entry.
That’s what makes this pairing feel so natural. Teddy brings the big, open-throat emotion. The band brings the road-tested drive. Together, they make “Feelin’ Alright” sound like it belongs to the night, not just to history.
A performance that proves feeling “alright” can be a fight
Teddy Swims and Tedeschi Trucks Band don’t treat “Feelin’ Alright” like a simple sing-along, they treat it like a real mood that comes and goes. The cheers, the spoken asides, and the repeated “myself” lines turn the song into something personal you can still share with a whole room. That’s why this Rock Hall 2025 moment lingers, it’s honest without being heavy, and it’s joyful without faking it. When music can hold both sides at once, that’s when it stays with you.
