Concert Review: The Teskey Brothers – Powerstation, December 6, 2019

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The Teskey Brothers performed the first of two sold-out shows at Auckland’s Powerstation last night, captivating the enamoured crowd with a set entwining bittersweet, blues-rock heartbreak with an outpouring of wholesome, rapturous soul.

For a band with such irresistible nostalgia-infused charm, it’s bewildering that Melbourne blues-rock band, The Teskey Brothers, has only recently experienced any considerable success. Since the release of their 2017 debut album, Half Mile Harvest, however, The Teskey Brothers have rightfully leapt from one musical milestone to another – successively taking home the Victoria Music Awards’ Breakthrough Artist, Best Emerging Act, and dual Best Album and Best Band Awards – alongside many others – in the past three years.

With the release of their new album, Run Home Slow, New Zealand fans were blessed with two, rapidly sold-out shows at Auckland’s Powerstation – the first of which, last night, showcased how heartbreakingly fortunate we are to have these musicians finally find the success they deserve.

Opening act, Harmony Byrne, set the tone for the gig with a captivating set, fusing the raw musical talent of Jeff Buckley with the fearless vocal and lyrical power of Janis Joplin. Opening with soft vocals and the gorgeous bass groove of Carl Os in Loving You Is Lonely, Byrne rapidly escalated her performance with the smoky-vocal howls of Smoke Inside, delicate, prom-night sweetheart guitar picking building into a phenomenal drum peak by Christopher Windley, before dropping into the sharp, harsh guitar strum of a Bluetones-style track.

The Buckley-Joplin comparisons continued throughout the remainder of the set – beautiful, slow guitar bends leading into heavy blues-rock riffs and ferocious, untamed vocals stretched each song beyond conventional melody into the epic territory of The Doors. A duet of upcoming-release, Good Idea, with guitar-solo magician, Neil Wilkinson, further dialled up the stunning intensity of the set, before a solo, a cappella number saw the singer fill the venue with her sustained, jaw-dropping vocal power – with the band returning to the stage to perform poetic closing number, Come Down vs Calm Down.

While the bar for remarkable, raw talent was already set at a maximum, I was taken aback by both the crowd reaction to The Teskey Brothers, and the instantaneous, soul-touching vocal sweetness of Josh Teskey. If you’ve listened to the group before, you’ll know exactly what I mean – if you haven’t, take a moment to put on Let Me Let You Down and Rain while I do my best to encapsulate how emotionally overwhelming this man’s voice is.

Pulling together a collective of Otis Redding, Al Green, JJ Grey, Wilson Picket, Marvin Gaye and Etta James, I’m struggling to convey a fitting voice-for-voice comparison for the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of The Teskey Brothers; he commands a voice destined to sing Blues and Soul, yet uses it to fill your heart with none of the former and an abundance of the latter.

I hadn’t experienced more than a minute of this collective performance – with brother, Sam Teskey, pouring blues from lead guitar, Brendon Love driving simple, sent-from-heaven basslines, and Liam Gough delicately tying the sound together on drums – before I stopped taking notes on the performance. ‘What is the point,’ I thought, ‘when this is something I can only convey by giving my full attention in allowing this music to pour through my soul along with the rest of the crowd?’

Successive numbers, Crying Shame, Say You’ll Do, I Get Up, and Rain showcased the subtle, perfectly timed keys of Olaf Scott on the Hammond organ, and introduced the Trumpet-Trombone duo of Charlie Woods and Nathaniel Sametz respectively, as Sam Teskey and Gough provided exquisite harmonised backing vocals across gentle fades in volume and stunning control of blues rhythm.

With Josh Teskey switching to acoustic guitar for San Francisco, and Woods and Gough switching to percussion shakers, the momentary taps of a tambourine by Sametz melded with the joyous claps of the crowd and slow, soulful backing vocals. Sunshine Baby switched Love onto the banjo and Sam Teskey onto bass, as the ‘Georgia On My Mind’ number further displayed Scott’s precision on the keys into the opening of So Caught Up – gorgeous, high-note guitar riffs and steady, balanced drums complementing the return of the trumpet and trombone.

The down-and-dirty blues tune, Honeymoon, brought a touch of ‘Love and Happiness’ before falling into a stretched, aching guitar solo that wouldn’t be out of place alongside Led Zeppelin’s Since I’ve Been Lovin’ You – the epic number increasing in tempo as the collective musicians overlapped their instruments, dropping into a sudden silence and a final rhythmic build before collapsing into a deconstructed blues fade-out.

Paint My Heart saw Josh Teskey on harmonica and balanced a sweeter, softer sound against a highlight moment of keys by Scott, as the pure, unfiltered joy on the faces of the musicians captured the feeling of the set perfectly; this is all music you know by heart, unspoken and unavoidably centred within you, the kind you could endlessly draw comparisons to if you would dare bypass the experience of simply letting it carry you away to a place of easy, intimate bliss.

Penultimate number, Louisa, saw the crowd clapping along again, with a conversational harmonica-to-organ performance between Teskey and Scott leading to isolated-stage drum solo by Love, spotlighting the musician for just the right amount of time before the band returned into a heavy, full-energy blues rhythm close, before gently dialling down into the slow, soulful blues of Right For Me.

An encore of Hold Me saw Byrne and Wilkinson return to the stage, as the blended groups performed the song a cappella with the entire crowd singing along, arms slung over each other’s shoulders and many grooving with their eyes closed, desperate to hold on to the final, glimmering fragments of the evening’s extraordinary magic; a performance which held a magnifying glass to the most hidden recesses of our hearts, and satisfied the intense yearning for soulful connection so often buried within.

~Oxford Lamoureaux

Click on any image to view a full gallery from Ivan Karczewski.

Harmony Byrne

The Teskey Brothers Setlist

Let Me Let You Down
Crying Shame
Say You’ll Do
I Get Up
Rain
San Francisco
Sunshine Baby
So Caught Up
Honeymoon
Paint My Heart
Louisa
Right For Me
Hold Me

Oxford Lamoureaux
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