TEENAGE FANCLUB have aged quite considerably since my last sighting of them last summer at FIB (a Spanish music festival set in a small town called Benacassa). They trundled onto the stage at Newcastle University Union looking somewhat older and more middle aged with less hair and more wrinkles than before.
The audience weren’t much different- consisting mostly of late twenty-somethings clutching at the last memories of their drunken student days-and so I was initially rather worried that the Fannies were past their prime and only touring for the sake of nostalgia. Fortunately this was not the case and their gig was one of the finest that I’ve seen in a long time.
It took a while for the crowd to really warm to the band- but this could have been due to the fact that at first the Fannies were playing a number of songs off their new album- ‘Man Made’ and no one knew how to take it. The new material was fantastic though- with simple, stripped down melodies and shimmering vocal harmonies in songs like ‘Nowhere’ and ‘Slow Fade’ and by the time the band started on the opening chords of ‘Start Again’ the crowd were fired up and ready to go, singing and dancing along to the songs- and cheering enthusiastically at the end of every number.
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After more than fifiteen years of playing together Teenage Fanclub still manage to make songs such as ‘Ain’t That Enough’ and ‘Neil Jung’ seem fresh, new and exciting and the catchy choruses of tunes such as ‘I Need Direction’ and ‘Sparky’s Dream’ help to illustrate how good this band really are and raises the question of why there aren’t more people who like them (although the slightly disappointing turnout could be explained by the fact that the band were competing against the Championship Finals that night).
It was a fantastic evening though and an audible groan rose through the crowd when Teenage Fanclub announced that it was (for definite this time) their last song- although it soon changed into loud cheers as the band kicked into ‘Everything Flows.’ This band will (hopefully) be around for years to come, ploughing through absolute gems of melodious pop and for that I love them unconditionally.
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