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Gerry Love Leaving Teenage Fanclub

Started by CaledonianGonzo, August 20, 2018, 10:55:31 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Crabwalk

#60
Thought I'd talk about last night's Bandwagonesque/Thirteen show in London here rather than the Gigs thread.

Gerry's departure inevitably hung over the whole thing, which meant lots of enthusiastic cheering and support for him but a slightly dampened atmosphere overall. That could've just been the typical London crowd, mind.

It wasn't helped by pretty bad sound, where the vocals and Raymond's guitar were overpowered by the rhythm section. Lots of calls from the crowd (some needlessly aggressive) for the sound desk to sort it out, but it was only ever improved slightly. There were also several ear-splitting squeals of feedback, many of which came during 'Ret Liv Dead' which kept taking everyone out of the song including, I suspect, Norman. What a shame, as we may never get to hear that again.

That said, having (I think) every member of every TFC line-up contributing to this show, and the care they put into reproducing each track, was wonderful to behold. Having everyone onstage for 'Is This Music?', for example, was spine-tingling. Brendan's occasionally wayward time-keeping prompted some chuckles from the band, but his antics kept the mood in the room lighter than it otherwise may have been considering the circumstances of the show.

Bandwagonesque was as fun as you'd expect, with 'Alcoholiday' probably the song that was met with most enthusiasm and acclaim. For me it's their best moment from the early years and it's always puzzled me why it so rarely gets a live outing. It was incredible last night, despite the muddy sound.

I've lamented on here before the lack of Thirteen material in their setlists so I was extra excited about that half of the show. I still treasure the 2CD version (with 'Older Guys' etc on the second disc) that I bought on its week of release when I was 15. It was one of the first CD albums I ever bought, having just been able to play tapes up to then.

Christ, I hammered that album for the next year. It's a record that isn't as satisfying a listen as their others in retrospect. It's un-cohesive, quite poorly produced, and jarring at times. The closest they got to a Third/Sister Lovers. But I think it also has more depth and variety than any of their other albums. There's more rawness, experimentation and pure emotion - for good and ill. Being 15ish was probably the right age to receive it.

So when these shows were first announced (pre-Gerry news) I identified this as the one I had to be at. I've heard the best tracks from the other records bags of times. This was my chance to hear 'Radio', 'Fear of Flying', 'Tears are Cool'... well, I was pumped at the thought of hearing pretty much every song. Even 'Get Funky'.

The band played the songs well, but nothing really hit me in the gut in the way I was expecting, I have to admit. The atmosphere was a bit flat, even though it seemed even more crowded than for the first half, and the sound issues were taking me out of the moment too much. The record starts with the radio-friendlier stuff of course, and it was enjoyable enough. But as the darker material takes hold I thought the band were maybe not as engaged, and the chatwankers in the crowd became more voluble. The band did get a great reception as the final moments of a gorgeous 'Gene Clark' died out, so perhaps people were just being quieter out of reverence before, I don't know.

So a good night, but not as seismic as I (perhaps unfairly) expected. They seem committed to keeping Gerry's departure low-key, which I completely understand. I'm jsut hoping that the sound issue are fixed for tonight and tomorrow and these shows are a fitting send-off to TFC as we know them. I'm still really looking forward to tomorrow, tissues at the ready.




Crabwalk

From Facebook:

QuoteMet Gerry again as he was entering the building. He said they hadn't decided what the last song of Night 3 will be. If the others want to play "Everything Flows" he'll go along with it, but if he had his way he wouldn't choose that because it would be "cheesy. Plus it's not the end of the band." (His words, more or less.) He'd rather they do another barely-rehearsed cover that they would mess up because it would feel more in keeping with the band. So let's see how that turns out tomorrow...

I'm hoping for a messy cover where they all collapse laughing.

DrGreggles

Quote from: Crabwalk on November 14, 2018, 07:50:28 PM
I'm hoping for a messy cover where they all collapse laughing.

Pretty much how Brum finished.

Crabwalk

It was 'Everything Flows'. A totally shambolic 'Everything Flows' that ended with Norman on drums, Brendan on guitar and Gerry bolting from the stage with a cursory wave. No mention of it being his last show at any point, and no encore or chance to say a proper goodbye despite a pleading crowd.

Lovely night though. The audience singing 'Broken' after it had faded away (as I'm sure also happened at the other Howdy!/B-Sides shows) was the emotional apex. We were definitely singing that for Gerry.

DrGreggles

Quote from: Crabwalk on November 15, 2018, 11:28:26 PM
It was 'Everything Flows'. A totally shambolic 'Everything Flows' that ended with Norman on drums, Brendan on guitar and Gerry bolting from the stage with a cursory wave. No mention of it being his last show at any point, and no encore or chance to say a proper goodbye despite a pleading crowd.

Lovely night though. The audience singing 'Broken' after it had faded away (as I'm sure also happened at the other Howdy!/B-Sides shows) was the emotional apex. We were definitely singing that for Gerry.

Yep. Lump in the throat stuff.

Crabwalk

The band have confirmed that for the upcoming tour Dave will switch to bass/vocals and Euros Childs will be joining on keyboards/vocals. They've been working on new material too.

Wow!

QuoteIt's 2019, and so far this year we have shows lined up in Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, U.S.A., Germany, France, Netherlands, Spain, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and also on a boat out in the Mediterranean somewhere. Of course, all of us are really looking forward to all of it. On the subject of "all of us", we have some news on that front - the Teenage Fanclub line-up on stage for these shows will be: Norman Blake – guitar / vocals, Euros Childs – keyboards / vocals, Francis Macdonald - drums / vocals, Raymond McGinley - guitars / vocals, and Dave McGowan – bass / vocals. We're excited to welcome Euros into the band, he's worked with us in the studio before and we go back a long way. And Dave on bass, oh yeah.

So, for these shows coming up, what can you expect?  As ever you can expect us to do what we want, but what we want to do at the moment is dig a bit deeper into the back catalogue and play songs we haven't played for years, so expect to hear things in the setlist beyond what you might have heard in recent years. And we've been working on new songs too, so maybe expect to hear a couple of those too.

DrGreggles

This is about as positive as it could have been post-Gerry.
I love GZM and Euros generally. Maybe they'll incorporate some Jonny stuff into the live set too.

CaledonianGonzo


Crabwalk

Understandable at this stage, heartbreaking though it is. Cleaner to make a break in setlist as well as personnel. How could anyone else sing lead on 'Sparky's Dream'? Best to think of them as TFC MkII.

Interesting how 'Broken' has emerged as something of an anthem in the past 6 months...

DrGreggles

Quote from: Crabwalk on February 01, 2019, 08:20:53 PM
Interesting how 'Broken' has emerged as something of an anthem in the past 6 months...

They played it on some of the Here tour dates in 2016 too.
I remember being surprised and overjoyed that they did.
Such a beautiful song.

CaledonianGonzo


CaledonianGonzo

Re: Broken

There's now this live remix thing from Brendan featuring the crowd singalong from the final shows:

Listen to Broken by Teenage Fanclub Fanclub #np on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/teenagefanclubfanclub/broken

DrGreggles

I genuinely get emotional thinking back to those Creation gigs.
TFC have been such a big part of my life.

holyzombiejesus

Quote from: CaledonianGonzo on February 01, 2019, 08:32:44 PM
Re: Broken

There's now this live remix thing from Brendan featuring the crowd singalong from the final shows:

Listen to Broken by Teenage Fanclub Fanclub #np on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/teenagefanclubfanclub/broken

I think that's a mix of people from the TFCFC Facebook page who all sent in vocal tracks that they'd recorded at home. I might be wrong though. I can't bear to listen to the fucking thing, it's absolutely foul. Minging.

As for TFC, I think I'll draw the curtains on them now.

DrGreggles


PaulTMA



non capisco

Quote from: holyzombiejesus on February 19, 2019, 10:38:07 PM
What's the A side like?

Meow!

I actually like it quite a bit. Would be immeasurably improved if they let rip at the end and have the guitars wailing over the chorus for another three or so minutes but one of these years I'm just going to have to accept that they're not the band that made 'God Knows It's True' anymore and haven't been for the majority of the time I've been breathing. Come on, you can hear it though, can't you? An extended full on crunchy squealing workout over those chords and then they take their feet off the pedals and end with the twinkly outro. It would have been good.

DrGreggles


PaulTMA

The first Raymond single ever, I think.  Although Escher (sung by Norman) was a radio single in the States and Hold On was one over here.  Think that was it though, no retail singles ever.   I think About You (over Mellow Doubt) and Your Love Is The Place Where I Come From (over Start Again) would have been better shouts as singles from those two albums.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

I went to see them last night at the Kelvingrove Bandstand in Glasgow. Their decision to exclude Gerry's songs from the set-list, while understandable at this early stage, creates a rather awkward tension. We'll always have Norman's great songs, and the odd nugget from Raymond, but a Teenage Fanclub gig sans Sparky's Dream, Star Sign, Ain't That Enough et al is always going to feel incomplete.

I don't know what else they can do, though. Norman singing one of Gerry's tunes will draw even more attention to the fact that the latter isn't there. The band is trying to move on and they did sound good (terrible, muddy sound mix in the first half hour notwithstanding). Francis, Dave and Euros share Gerry's third harmony between them, and they do a decent job. The set contained most of Norman and Raymond's best songs. It was pretty good, but... they're not really Teenage Fanclub anymore, are they?


holyzombiejesus

I was far far more excited by a Facebook post stating that someone had spoken with "Gerry's drummer" who had stated that he had loads more music ready to go and that he'd be playing his TFC stuff when he tours.