On a day that started disappointingly for the OOR reporter on duty in the digital queue for another pair of brothers in pop music, we went to Ziggo Dome for the brothers Josh and Sam Teskey. The Teskey Brothers have been steadily growing in popularity in recent years. And after two appearances at AFAS Live last year, they are now making the transition to the ‘cable cube’. ‘This is our biggest show to date’, the Australians cheer.
Photography Mick de Jong
It is no coincidence that this show is taking place in the Netherlands. Nowhere in the world is the band as popular as in our country. Frontman Josh Teskey does not hide his gratitude for this. His hands go endlessly to his chest, after which he makes a mini bow to indicate that tonight’s show and the response to it touches him.
It balances between theatrical and sincere, but you can also say that about the way he makes his blues music. Night after night he screams away long-forgotten love pain with conviction, or sings about how much he feels for his wife and children, after which he seeks Sam’s gaze and crawls over to his brother for a moment.
No, Sam and Josh don’t fit into the tradition of brothers Everly, Gallagher and Fogerty. Where Liam and Noel Gallagher used words like shitbag and fucker, these brothers give each other a loving look. And where the Everly brothers publicly smashed guitars on each other, these brothers once again say how much they like each other. And that’s a good thing, because when you’re away from home together for so long, you better get along.
The duo – and the rest of the seven-piece band – also find each other effortlessly musically. Touring and playing is second nature to them: they did it for nine months straight in 2023 and this year they are also on the road for most of the year. The setlist is almost exactly the same every night.
The only change tonight is that Dutch singer Tabitha takes the stage for the duet Blind Without You, but to be honest this feels like a particularly awkward and insincere duet with both vocalists barely daring to look at each other.
The highlights then: the cheerful Radio 2 hit So Caught Up gets the Ziggo Dome moving and in the dignified Take My Heart the two horns can excel. In What Will Be, the closing track of the latest album The Winding Wayeverything that makes this band so good is there. A wonderful, classic rhythm and blues build-up of eleven minutes, with plenty of room for Josh’s raw voice, guitarist Sam’s licks, the horns, the Hammond organ and, as it should be, the blues harp is also conjured out of the bag.
We end, as is tradition with this band, with Hold Me in gospel singing. For minutes the audience claps and sings along with the band, who are standing arm in arm on the stage. With sunny moods we leave the Bijlmer. The hangover that we are not going to see those two bickering brothers from Manchester has disappeared like snow in the sun.
Seen: August 31, 2024 in Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam