Review by Jake Thomas

The Rosebuds came back to town on tour from North Carolina, which was exciting to me for two reasons: not only are they a fantastic band, but friends as well. This time out Ivan and Kelly had two lads helping with the live sound - Wes on drums and Reid on second guitar. This was my first time hearing a lot of their new material, and it sounded great; a little more introspective than the earlier tunes, and a more varied sound…there was even a duet in there with Kelly singing along with Ivan, the first time she has ever tried her hand at vocals - and it was one of the stronger songs of the set. No doubt their new album that is coming out later this year will be a dandy listen (actually I know it is, as they already gave me an advance on it). They also hit some of their older songs in the live set like “Back to Boston” and “Kicks in the Schoolyard”, and if I’m not mistaken even some of the diehard Teenage Fanclub fans were enjoying most of their set.

What can you say about the Fanclub? You know upon arrival it’s going to be a fantastic show - the songs are so amazing, and they’ve been doing it so long, it would take some extreme circumstances for things not to turn out swell. The only real question is what would they play? As it turns out, they hit across their entire catalogue pretty well, playing almost half of “Songs from Northern Britain”, which is not only my favorite record of theirs but probably one of my top 5 or 10 records of all time. They also played “Star Sign”, “What You Do to Me” and at least one more track from “Bandwagonesque”; “Neil Jung”, “Sparky’s Dream” and a couple of others from “Grand Prix”; and probably three-fourths of their new album “Man-Made”. The show went on for nearly two hours I would guess, and it was just hit after hit for me and the other old fogeys there who have been worshipping this band for over a decade. I still remember fondly my first Fanclub experience, when they played Saturday Night Live just after “Bandwagonesque” came out, and it blew me away. It still amazes me to think they played that show, and how bad most of their musical selections are now…but that’s a tale for a different time I guess.

Nonetheless, it was pretty much a perfect show from start to finish, if only they ventured across the ocean more often than they do now.

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Check out our previous Rosebuds review:
July 29, 2004 @ The Cat's Cradle, Chapel Hill, NC



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