Gig review: Teenage Fanclub at Project House, Leeds
In their fourth decade, the Glasgow indie rock band remain an endearing, cynicism-free proposition.
It’s not hard to see why High Fidelity author Nick Hornby has long cherished Teenage Fanclub. Primarily, he said in a 2002 interview, it’s the tunes – and at tonight’s gig at a packed Project House there are plenty of those – but also, he pointed out, it’s the optimism and lack of cynicism in their songs that has made the Glasgow band so durable.
Only Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley may remain from the line-up who made their copper-bottomed classic 1991 album Bandwagonesque, but now operating as a five-piece with Francis MacDonald on drums, Dave McGowan on bass and Euros Childs, late of the much-missed Welsh group Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, they’ve evolved from their early, slightly haphazard proposition live into a thoroughly solid unit capable of augmenting their legacy with new LPs every couple of years while retaining some of their original, scuffed-around-the-edges charm.
This evening’s 20-song set, rattled off in 80 minutes, mixes highlights from their 13th album Do Not Dare To Dream, released last month to favourable reviews, with a selection from their catalogue. Notable by their absence are hits such as Star Sign and Sparky’s Dream, which were penned by Gerard Love, who departed in 2018, but there are more than enough gems that were composed by Blake or McGinley to make up a thoroughly enjoyable set list.
Opening with Tired of Being Alone from their 2023 album Nothing Lasts Forever, what’s quickly apparent is the power of the current line-up’s harmonies, which vary from a two-part blend of Blake and Childs’s voices to full-on five-part agglomerations in I’m In Love and the glorious set-closer Everything Flows.
McGinley’s Fender Jazzmaster adds heft to the guitar solos in About You and Can’t Feel My Soul; Blake slips in a cheerful whistling solo into Mellow Doubt, and they even dust off The Cabbage from their 1993 album Thirteen.
The influence of The Byrds is telling in McGinley’s Roger McGuinn-like composition Over and Over while Blake’s I’m In Love leans more towards the ruminations of Gene Clark. Another lasting inspiration, Big Star, echoes throughout Everything Flows.
But it’s the joyful mass singalong to The Concept leaves the deepest impression. Thirty-seven years on from their formation, Teenage Fanclub remain a band to cherish, with songs to die for.