Live Review: Teenage Fanclub at The Electric Ballroom, London

The audience for tonight’s gig are a most well-mannered and genial crowd. Be-spectacled, bearded for the most part, and from where I’m standing smelling strongly of soap. There are few signs of vulgar selfie-taking and little annoying chatter. They wait expectantly.

The band stroll nonchalantly onto the bare-bones stage before launching into ‘Start Again’ and we are immediately enveloped in a warm blanket of inclusivity. Teenage Fanclub have been together for so long that they harmonise like siblings, the three core-members' egalitarian approach touched by the guiding-spirit of Gene Clark – no coincidence that they once wrote a song about him.

The set proceeds in avuncular manner, every gaffe – false starts and bum notes – dismissed with tolerant and affectionate good-cheer. After ‘Darkest Part Of The Night’ from latest album Here, guitarist Raymond McGinley and keyboard-player Dave McGowan – doubling on guitar – are introduced as, “Slash and Tony Iommi." At times all five members join together to create a heavenly choir of sweet and tender contrapunt borne on crashing waves of guitar – West Coast via North Lanarkshire.

If this is starting to sound disturbingly like the aural equivalent of donning a onesie while sipping cocoa in front of a crackling fire, don’t knock it – it’s a sublime feeling. Transcendent in fact. A healing balm to the vagaries and vicissitudes of an existence where there are few certainties. “All my life I felt so uptight, but it’s gone alright” sings Blake on ‘I Need Direction’, and as the dying chords of ‘Everything Falls’ ring out, Teenage Fanclub leave the throng with a feeling that's – not unlike their guitars – warm and fuzzy.