Last weekend was Teenage Fanclub weekend. A triple treat, a trio of tip-top turns, a heroes welcome for a hatrick of homecoming shows. And any other number of alliterative delights. Each show was different and each show was great for any number of reasons. I’ve mentioned the ‘Electric Chestnuts’ show below, so we’ll focus on the other 2 for now.
Sunday night’s setlist
Sunday night was the ‘Acoustic Chestnuts’ night and it was fantastic. Instruments were swapped, harmonies were finely honed (especially Francis- who knew drummers could sing?) and there were big smiles all round. In contrast to the sound problems of Saturday night, at some points the vocals were so good it was like listening to the Everly Brothers. Personal highlights were the songs from the Grand Prix era- ‘Don’t Look Back’, ‘Going Places’ and ‘Some People Try To Fuck With You’, which sounded like Astrud Gilberto on Buckfast.
Monday night’s setlist
Monday night was the one I was looking most forward to – the b-sides and hardly-ever-played night. Teenage Fanclub did not disappoint. The show was heavy on ‘A Catholic Education’ -era Fanclub (‘Heavy Metal’! ”Every Picture I Paint’! Eternal Light’!) and the much-neglected ‘Thirteen’ album – ‘Escher‘! ‘Gene Clark’!, ‘Ret Live Dead’!, which meant lots of distortion pedals, fewer backing vocals and the odd cocked-up start (poke about on YouTube for Norman 3). It was like a Fannies gig from way back in the day and it was extra magic, the best of the three without a doubt. Brendan O’Hare got plucked Springsteen-style from the crowd to sing ‘The Ballad Of John & Yoko’ and no-one’s mentioned this yet, but Norman’s McCartney backing vocals were pretty immense. Raymond’s frazzled playing on ‘Born Under A Good Sign’ made it sound like Love, circa 1967. They even played ‘Broken’, before coming back on for the genuinely not-planned double-whammy of ‘Sparky’s Dream’ and ‘Alcoholiday’, although had they also played ‘God Knows It’s True’ and/or ‘Everybody’s Fool’ (and given the albums they were drawing from I think they could’ve) and maybe even ‘I Heard You Looking’, if that’s not being too greedy, this gig would have been gig of the decade. Still, Best Gig of 2008 is good enough for now.
Norman 3 (nights)
Anyway, lots of talk over at the Teenage Fanclub Message Boards about how the band should release an acoustic album, or a b-sides album, or a live album, or indeed, any kind of album at all. But an Acoustic Fanclub album would be an excellent idea. In the meantime, you could do worse than make do with these wee beauties. Firstly, recorded for ‘The White Sessions’ on French radio on the 11th April 1995….
Don’t Look Back
Say No
Star Sign
I’ll Make It Clear
Sparky’s Dream
Have You Ever Seen The Rain
Mellow Doubt
(click here to download as one complete session)
‘The White Sessions’ is a long running French radio show where bands go in and record acoustic sessions. Teenage Fanclub used their time to promote Grand Prix. The same radio station also do ‘The Black Sessions’ where the band play a longer, usually electric set in front of a small invited audience. Teenage Fanclub also did a Black Session in 1993 but I’ve never heard it. It may be that some of the tracks below are taken from it, I don’t know. An official-looking CD from the show was on sale up until yesterday on eBay and I was quite excited. But when the bidding started approaching £30 I got scared off. I couldn’t justify that sort of money for something which will probably turn up online soon. Fingers crossed. If you were the lucky bidder, how about sending me a copy?!
Also taken from my personal vaults (!) of badly-labelled Teenage Fanclub radio sessions, curios and oddities, here’s a random selection of acoustic-based Teenage Fanclub. I’m unclear as to where most of these came from. Radio sessions? I don’t know. But not b-sides. No siree. Rare Fanclub. Cos the Teenage Fanclub are a rare band, a rare band indeed. Download and enjoy!
a piano-led Hang On
The Shadows (Mark Radcliffe session)
Plain Or Pan 