Teenage Fanclub – Reading Festival – 1992 (Abbreviated set) – August 30, 1992 – BBC Radio 1 –
Teenage Fanclub tonight, in an abbreviated set from their legendary 1992 Reading Festival appearance – recorded on August 30, 1992 by BBC Radio 1.
Teenage Fanclub are a Scottish alternative rock band formed in Bellshill near Glasgow in 1989. The band was founded by Norman Blake (vocals, guitar), Raymond McGinley (vocals, lead guitar) and Gerard Love (vocals, bass), all of whom shared lead vocals and songwriting duties until Love’s departure in 2018. As of 2019, the band’s lineup consists of Blake, McGinley, Francis MacDonald (drums, vocals), Dave McGowan (bass, vocals) and Euros Childs (keyboards, vocals).
In concert, the band usually alternate among its songwriters, giving equal playing time to each one’s songs. Although often pegged as alternative rock, the group have incorporated a wide variety of elements from various music styles in their songs.
They have had a succession of drummers, including Francis MacDonald, Brendan O’Hare and Paul Quinn, who left the band after recording the album Howdy!. Quinn was replaced by the returning Francis MacDonald. Keyboardist Finlay MacDonald (no relation) has also been a member. As of September 2016, the band have released ten studio albums and two compilation albums.
Teenage Fanclub emerged from the Glasgow C86 scene. Their sound is reminiscent of Californian bands like the Beach Boys and the Byrds, and their seventies counterparts Big Star. Originally a noisy and chaotic band, their first album A Catholic Education, released in 1990 on Paperhouse, is largely atypical of their later sound, with the possible exception of “Everything Flows”. The King, their next album, received critical reviews; it consisted of a number of self-confessed shambolic guitar thrashes and a cover of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin”.[1]
Their next album, Bandwagonesque, released on Creation Records in the UK and Geffen in the US, brought Teenage Fanclub a measure of commercial success. Bandwagonesque was more deliberately constructed, the hooks became stronger, the guitar riffs were brought under control, and the harmony vocals took shape. Bandwagonesque topped Spin magazine’s 1991 end-of-year poll for best album, beating Nirvana’s Nevermind, their Creation stablemates My Bloody Valentine’s album Loveless, and R.E.M.’s Out of Time.
The subsequent, Thirteen, received mixed reviews on release. Brendan O’Hare left Teenage Fanclub during this period because of “musical differences”, to be replaced by Paul Quinn (formerly of the Soup Dragons).
Grand Prix, Teenage Fanclub’s fifth album, was both a critical and commercial success in the UK, becoming their first top ten album. In the United States however the band failed to regain the ground that Thirteen had lost them. Around this time Liam Gallagher of labelmates Oasis called the band “the second best band in the world” — second only to Oasis.
Still going strong, but to get an idea of what they were up to at Reading in 1992 – hit the play button and crank this one up. I’ll run the complete concert soon as a weekend feature – worry not.
