Tonight Teenage Fanclub, who are ably supported by Euros Childs, are appropriately bringing their worshipful audience to Hackney Church. The band have just released their newest album Do Not Dare to Dream, and tonight’s set mixes their newest songs among treasures from their 36 year musical journey.
Euros Childs is the opening act tonight who is as he says here to “warm you up like a Welsh hot water bottle”. Euros is performing solo with his keyboards, his whimsical songwriting and lovely vocals and dry sense of humor evident throughout this short set. He introduces ‘My Colander’ song by letting us know he thought about not playing it because of where we are because it is a bit racy and erotic. The song about Objectophilia with a household item chosing a colander over other possibilities is very funny. Euros introduces another song as being his biggest song everywhere except the UK (noting that this was on his own record label National Elf). Euros invited the crowd to singalong with one of his songs but the poor response from the crowd led to him saying that this was the worst one he had ever experienced Euros admitted that this was probably not the way to get us to to warm to him. All was forgiven when he played ‘Poodle Rockin’ by Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci (can we get a reunion in 2027 please?) and then his song ‘about thinking we would like him. Euros is so prolific (over 20 albums since 2006) that I’m now planning a deeper dive into his musical output after seeing him tonight.
Teenage Fanclub are warmly welcomed to the stage starting off with ‘Tired of Being Alone’ from their newest album which finds them in a somewhat contemplative mood singing “Come with me, watch the seasons go”. The band which now included Euros Child on keyboards and backing vocals since 2019 continue to mine a rich seam of power pop, indie rock mixing guitar heavy songs with more mellow ones. ‘About You’ from Grand Prix remains a beautiful song, elegantly simple, gorgeous harmonies and guitar hooks. ‘Metal Baby’ is well received by the crowd some of whom were likely there at the beginning of Teenage Fanclub and remaining fans of the band over the years. My friend who I went with who has generally good taste in music said that they are the band he has seen the most often. The dedication of fans to the band creates a warm atmosphere with those who are newer converts being made to feel welcome in the friendly atmosphere. This might be partially due to the setting but I suspect this happens in other venues as well.
There are a few more new songs including ‘Day in the Sun’ and ‘Tomorrow People’ that sound much better live than on record where they sounded a little too quiet to me. There is an acoustic section of the night where we are treated to 3 songs with Norman switching to an acoustic guitar for this part of the set. ‘There was you’, the second single from their newest album, shows that the band have not lost any of their abilities to write beautiful, heartfelt songs that sound timeless. ‘Mellow Doubt’ from my one of my favorite of their albums Grand Prix complete with whistling and ‘I don’t want control of you’ are both fantastic with Francis MacDonald’s noticeably excellent drumming which sometimes gets forgotten with all of the praise for Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley’s contributions.
‘Everything’s falling apart’ from Endless Arcades stands out as one of their better more recent songs. ‘What you Do to Me’ with it’s woozy harmonies would melt the hardest heart and has everyone joining in the singalong. ‘My Uptight life’ gets an outing along with ‘It’s a Bad World’ reminding us all of just how many brilliant songs the band have up their sleeves. They end the main set with ‘The Concept’ from Bandwagonesque, one of the loveliest songs ever written.
The band return for a 3 song encore ending with the first song they released ‘Everything Flows’ taking us back to their beginnings 36 years ago. It still sounds as fresh and lovely but hearing it now played by the band who are now for the most part in their 50s and 60s has a different dimension to it. Listening to them singing “I’ll never know which way to flow, set a course for I don’t know” wondering how they feel about the routes they’ve taken, the music they’ve made together and what will happen next. They have given us a euphoric night of celebration by a band maturing but not losing their sparkle, and a chance to feel lifted by their music. Not quite a religious epiphany but soaring as close to divine melodies as humanly possible.
Euros Childs: Website
Teenage Fanclub: Website
Reviewed and photos by Jason McDonald Instagram Blue Sky
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