In a way, Teddy Swims, real name Jaten Dimsdale, has the Dunedin-formed band to thank for where he is today. The 31-year-old soul singer started out recording covers on YouTube, and already had scores of Kiwi fans when he released his own version of Rivers in 2019. Since then, he’s gushed about his love for New Zealand and his gratitude for the love we’ve shown him back.
In recent years, he’s been something of a best-kept secret among his fans. But a glance around the room at Spark Arena last night proved that’s no longer the case.
It’s not quite a year since he played the Auckland Town Hall - a venue that can hold around 1500 people. This year, he’s back for three shows in New Zealand, and the crowd in Tāmaki Makaurau last night numbered around 12,000.
After opening with Goodbye’s Been Good to You, the first words out of his mouth are “Holy s***,” as he gazes in disbelief at the size of the crowd in front of him.
“First off, how the hell are you doing? Y’all can’t be doing near as good as I’m doing right now,” he jokes.
“I owe you my life. That 2019 cover, y’all the first people that ever loved me. When everybody doubted us, y’all had our backs. I’m gonna cry all f***ing night.”
Cry he will, but for now, he holds back the tears and launches into the show - nearly two hours of hit after hit from his chart-topping album I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy, backed by his “best friends” band Freak Freely.
They’re all wearing All Blacks jerseys, and Swims admits he was nervous ahead of yesterday’s test match against England in Dunedin.
“I bought us all All Black jerseys and I was so scared, if we didn’t win tonight it would be so f***ing awful,” he confesses.
“But damn it, we f***ing won, didn’t we?”
During the show, Swims performs newer songs like Hammer to the Heart and Apple Juice, and fan favourites 911, Devil in a Dress, and All That Really Matters.
His vocals are powerful enough that they don’t get lost amid the production, which pulled out all the stops from pyrotechnics to a smoke machine, streamers and confetti.
It’s a far cry from the Town Hall. The intimacy that comes with playing smaller venues may be a thing of the past, but he hasn’t lost the art of making each member of the audience feel like each song is being performed just for them.
He’s billed as “genre-defying” and that’s exactly what he delivers. A little bit of soul, a little bit pop, a little bit country, a little bit R&B, woven into songs that make you feel every emotion from sorrow to joy.
Later on in the show, he strips it back, serenading the crowd with love ballad Amazing, the wistful Some Things I’ll Never Know and a cover of Shania Twain’s You’re Still the One, dedicated to his mom.
But it’s his rendition of Rivers that leaves him in tears.
“I’m always so honoured to play this song,” he says, describing Six60 as “one of the greatest bands of all time”.
After the first verse, which already has the crowd on their feet and singing along, he welcomes Walters to the stage amid deafening applause.
It’s a full-circle moment for Swims, who told the Herald last year ahead of his album release that he’d been texting Walters about an “eventual collaboration”.
“They’re incredible. His voice is just out of this world,” he said of Walters at the time. “So if the timing ever works out, we’ll do something.”
That “something” finally happened in person this week, after years of missing each other - the previous day, Walters joined him for a surprise performance outside shopping precinct Commercial Bay to raise funds for Red Nose Day and Cure Kids NZ.
“I’m gonna be bringing that up every five minutes,” he tells the crowd.
The show closes on a high with hits Lose Control and The Door as the encore. Swims is off to Wellington next after kicking off the New Zealand leg of the tour in Christchurch earlier this week, and if you’re heading along to the TSB Arena show tonight, get ready - you’re in for an unforgettable night.
- Teddy Swims plays the final show on the NZ leg of his I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy tour at TSB Arena in Wellington on Sunday July 7
Bethany Reitsma is an Auckland-based journalist covering lifestyle and entertainment stories who joined the Herald in 2019. She specialises in telling Kiwis’ real-life stories, reviews the occasional concert, and writes about coffee whenever she can.
