Teenage Fanclub
The Limelight, Belfast, 30th January 2003
Teenage Fanclub (Norman Blake, Gerry Love and, Raymond McGinley) are one of a small
handful of guitar bands that have survived the 90s and are still thriving in
this new century. Regular as clockwork, they release an album every 2 years,
tour and then disappear. This is not the sort of band you are likely to read
about in the tabloids. They are about the music and that is all. And what damn
fine music it is.
The sheer number of excited faces crammed into The Limelight is testament to the
appeal Teenage Fanclub - affectionately nicknamed The Fannies - still hold.
Opening with the slacker classic 'Everything flows', the crowd gleefully sang
along, hands rose into the air, hips swayed and bums wiggled.
Unfortunately sound problems plagued the band for much of the night. This did
noticeably irritate the band at times, but on the whole they looked relaxed and
happy with the warm reception they were receiving.
Playing songs mainly from their recent best-of collection, the setlist was a
journey through the highlights of their career. Personally, the song of the
night was 'What you do to me', which originally featured on their breakthrough "Bandwagonesque"
album. To be honest I had never been particularly keen on this track until
hearing it live. It was quite simply 3 minutes of the finest pop music I have
heard in years! Sounding punchy and even a little punky, it seemed to please a
lot of the older fans.
The three new songs (one by each member of course), were also played to moderate
applause, but as these tracks had only been released four days previous, it
seemed most of the audience were not yet familiar with them.
After a five-minute break, the band once again took to the stage, and following
a rather lacklustre version of 'Planets' by McGinley, they played probably their
most famous tracks - 'Sparky's Dream' and the timeless 'The Concept'. The former
sounded as beautiful and joyous as ever and for me immediately brought back
memories of the mid-nineties and their most successful album "Grand Prix". Then
came The Concept. Simply breathtaking. An awe-inspiring nugget of pure joyous
melody. We sang, we swooned, we swayed and we saluted. I get the impression this
band is here to stay. They are not going to disappear with the next music trend,
nor will they implode in scenes of rock'n'roll debauchery. They will be round
for years, quietly ploughing out melodic nuggets of pop and, for that, we love
them.
Graham Smith
Check
out a review of Teenage Fanclub's best of album'4,766 Seconds - A Short Cut To Teenage
Fanclub'
