From: Sparky (doug@broon.demon.co.uk)

From The Glasgow Herald, Newspaper.

ROCK : DAMIEN LOVE
BIG STAR WITH AN ADORING FANCLUB.

	Considering that the one is widely regarded as being the
biggest influence on the other, and the other is widely regarded as
having saved Scottish music from from the tepid nonesense of the late
Eighties, the prospect of seeing ALEX CHILTON playing with TEENAGE
FANCLUB is one to set many hearts a-fluttering.
So many, in fact, that they are probably quite a few lying fractured
now, if not completely broken due to the somewhat exclusive nature of
the shows they played in Glasgow last week. The TEENAGE CHILTON nights
were the opening blast of the 13th Notes week long  "#1" event, and
given the size of the venue, in all only about 400  lucky souls would
have been able to pay homage over the two nights.
The flipside to this, of course, is that the nights somehow seem more
special; gigs like this are the stuff of legend precisely because not
that many people actually see them. No matter how great or indifferent
the performance, you can spin huge cathedrals of hyperbole around the
show to the bored jealousy of friends who didn't manage to get a
ticket, for years to come. Or, conversely, you can claim you were
there, in the sure knowledge that no one else knows you, and therefore
can't call you up on it.
There did, however, appear to be a peculiarily pleasant pregnancy in
the air of the venue. Mr CHILTON himself standing down the end of the
bar, looking vaguely, annoyingly, like someone, bemusedly grooving to
the extremely choice pre-show tape filtering above the clink and hum,
or witnessing the FANCLUB members' grinning arrivals. It feels like
summer outside. People are smiling. The bars not too busy. Then a
fleeting thought - TEENAGE FANCLUB AND ALEX CHILTON?
It's a bit obvious, innit? A bit passe'. While that little daggers
still lurking around your brain, the band start playing. It's
"September Gurls", and words like "obvious" and "passe'" melt away
like wicked witches in a sun shower. The song, along with the
similarly glorious "Dark End Of The Street", is a CHILTON standard,
and maybe not the most off-the-wall choice of opener.
No matter - like James Dean drunkenly playing with a toy monkey in the
gutter, there are some things wich are timelessly great. The group
seem to be relishing relinquishing their spotlight, stepping backwards
into the role of a bar room band, luxuriating in being able to play
and coo in the backup. The guitars, especially, are particularly apt
and considered, strumming and chiming out an earnest backdrop for
CHILTON'S boy-in-broken-love vocal. Who does he look like?
The song choices begin to go reasonably haywire with takes on the
Everlys' "Walk Right Back" and "Have I The Right", songs we probably
shouldn't like, but suddenly realise we do, after all.
The biggest surprise, though comes with the fully fledged Joe Meek /
Tornadoes revival heralded by
"DuMM-delumdelumDUMdelumdelumDUM-delumdelumDUMMM..." Yeah, out of the
blue, it's an ear-splitting, perfecto-sounding, respectful revamp of
"Telstar". There's some strange, time bending conundrum at work here.
"Telstar" is the sound of yesterday's tommorrow. Here it is being
played by a group who are one of today's most thoughtful curators of
the past, in support of a man who started recording around the late
Sixties. Get it? Your'e not supposed to, it's jus this daft, wondrous
noise, made all the more so when one steps back and considers this is
TEENAGE FANCLUB. Soon after, while looking at his eyes and thinking he
still looks younger than he should, it finally clicks into place -
ALEX CHILTON looks uncannily like Francois Truffaut. A strange thing
to realise halfway through a "Stars in your Eyes" work out of Marc
Bolan's "Life's A Gas". There's a meaning here, somewhere.
The first set over, Francois cuts back to the bar to nod along to the
now distinctly jazzy tape which lays the ground for part two of the
show. With TEENAGE FANCLUB -  glasses in hand and smiles in place -
now evenly distributed among the crowd, CHILTON, with BMX BANDIT
Francis McDonald on drums and another Bellshill suspect providing
bass, performs a short, jazz-tinged night-time set, revisiting some of
the material already performed by the ALEX FANCLUB. Among the prime
benefits of the short set is the crystal clarity with which his
isolated guitar playing can now be heard. As the night ends, there is
no climactic moment, more of a general satisfied happy purring, in
keeping with the steady, easy flowing of the whole evening. I'm
telling you, man, you shoulda been there.....