Teenage Fan club

THE choir was clear: see the perennial Teenage Fanclub in a big wet field supporting Radiohead, or experience their shambling guitar sound in the relative comfort of the Olympia theatre. The "Scottish Big Star" had wisely decided to warm up for last Saturday's Big Day Out with a special Midnight show the previous night for their more dentally-elongated fans, thus saving us the trouble of having to peer over the heads of real teenagers.

The Fannies have been around since before Britpop, and they can even command the respect of labelmates Oasis, who definitely maybe, listened to Bandwagonesque once or twice. Teenage Fanclub's forthcoming album is called Songs From Northern Britain, but Norman Blake insists that it's not meant to be a Scottish Nationalist slogan, Just a jokey reminder that not all bands come from Manchester or Bristol.

Onstage, the band are cool and consistent - sometimes they sound reassuringly ropey, and sometimes they hit the perfect vibe, but always they sound like they were beamed down from another pop planet, where every chord jangles, every harmony is heavenly, and every chorus puts a big, dumb smile on your face.

Mainman Norman Blake took the vocals for Neil Jung, Mellow Doubt and the new single, Is That Enough? Guitarist Raymond McGinley sang the quirky Verisimilitude and the strident About You, but it was left to bassist Gerry Love to sing the two best tunes of the night, Starsign and Sparky's Dream.