'Cargo of nostalgia' - Review: Teenage Fanclub, Kelvingrove

The Herald Scotland

01-08-2025

Kelvingrove, Glasgow
Teenage Fanclub start as they mean to go on. At nine in the evening the five-piece band bounce onto the stage with an enthusiasm that's hard to fake in men largely in their fifties and sixties and launch into Foreign Land from their 2023 album Nothing Lasts Forever. Guitars snarl and spit, but you can't ignore the sweetness that underlies everything.
And that is the story of the 'best band in the world' (according to Kurt Cobain, and he's no longer around to contradict himself). They may have emerged from Bellshill at the fag end of the 1980s as a slightly chaotic noise band with scuzzy tendencies, but sweetness followed.
In thrall to Big Star and the Byrds, the Teenage Fanclub sound is one ultimately marked by harmony. A power pop band with three singer-songwriters (until the departure of Gerry Love in 2018), they have remained largely in tune throughout more than three decades.
That was very much on show during this en plein air gig. And not just in the vocals. Incongruously squeezed between Chicago's pop queen Anastacia and noughties singer-songwriter Natasha Bedingfield in the Summer Nights programme, the Fannies brought their own cargo of fond nostalgia for an audience that had largely grown up with their records.
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The cynical (and I have been that soldier at times) might be prone to dismiss the Fannies as a band loved as much for their record collection as their music, but it's clear tonight that this is a minority opinion. And one that doesn't hold up to examination. What You Do To Me prompts a rush to the front of the stage. And when the band break into Neil Jung from their Grand Prix album a middle-aged moshpit kicks off.
'The second best band in the world' (according to Liam Gallagher, and you can probably guess whom he considered the first) are not natural showmen, but they are compelling to watch. Blake is the voice of the band, naming the songs, telling us he's dropped his plectrum, apologising for the bum notes he's just played (that no one noticed) or confirming that, yes, that is a can of Chappie dog food sitting on the speaker.
McGinley only opens his mouth to sing, but his singing and, in particular, his guitar says plenty. He pulls and cajoles riffs out of his instrument, his whole body bending into the action. At times he strangely reminds me of one of those wibbly-wobbly air dancers you used to see outside car dealerships.
His playing gives a taste of gravel and grit to the evening. Half a dozen songs in, McGinley launches into Everything Is Falling Apart, the performance of which has a metallic sharpness at odds with much of the almost bucolic atmosphere of the evening. But even that song, it should be noted, is a declaration of love. And six songs later the band are telling us The World'll Be OK.
Rattling through 14 songs in just over an hour Blake admits the band have miscalculated the length of the set list and need to add a couple of songs. No one is complaining. The Concept prompts a mass singalong and the band finish where they started with their first single, Everything Flows, its sweep and drive and tidal pull as good a summary of the band's appeal as any.
Tonight, they're definitely the best band in Glasgow.
We never find out why the Can of Chappie is there, though.