Live Review: Teenage Fanclub @ the Electric Ballroom, 08/12/2010

On Wednesday I went along to Camden to see Teenage Fanclub play at the Electric Ballroom, at a show that had apparently been moved from the Forum in Kentish Town due to a lack of ticket sales. This is criminal - such an influential, well-loved band should be playing much bigger stages, and indeed in my opinion should be a mainstay of radio, a status that their far less consistent fellow ex-Glasgow C86 scene progenies Primal Scream have enjoyed during their recent renaissance. 

That said, any band with as many albums as Teenage Fanclub are going to have had lulls during their career. Not having seen them before, I was apprehensive as to how many of the songs I would recognise - since their classic  early-to-mid-1990s run of albums culminating in 1997's Songs From Northern Britain, they have released 4 albums, only the latest of which has gripped me even momentarily. 

Support was provided by Yuck, a band tipped as London's 'next big thing' by quite a few people recently. I had seen them before, supporting the Pains Of Being Pure At Heart at Heaven in August, and hadn't thought much of them. Indeed, I thought that time they were pretty much what I expected from the members of Cajun Dance Party, darlings of the Bernard Butler 'indie' set, trying to 'go Sonic Youth'. Here, however, they were completely different - the superior sound system allowed even the noisiest of their songs to be appreciated, with the song that seemed to be about milkshake (I'm not sure what it's called) a particular highlight, and I definitely now think the hype has at least some basis.

Even when Teenage Fanclub came out on stage, I was still fairly apprehensive - with them clearly having entered middle age, I didn't know whether it would be a gig with enough energy to live up to my expectations. This was dispelled immediately when they fired into Start Again, one of their best songs, with a surprising intensity. The classic songs kept coming, with the setlist pretty much just drawing on the older albums and the better songs from this year's Shadows, with some of the onstage banter being genuinely hilarious, a rarity for such an established band. Baby Lee, the lead single from the new album, held its own next to my personal favourite TF song, Don't Look Back. Despite a few notable absences (especially Neil Jung), I'm not sure they could have put on a show more perfect for their (mostly slightly ageing) audience.

Here's a YouTube video of the opener, Start Again (sorry for the lack of visual quality, the sound isn't too bad though)