Go, Jonny, go.

Gig review and Photos by Dawn

If only there were more bands like Jonny.

There aren’t enough paeans to bread or to Gloria Estefan in the world, just as there aren’t enough musicians who can make you smile from ear to ear for an entire show.

Then again, if anyone’s going to cheer you up with a live performance it’s a fair bet that permanently smiley Scotsman Norman Blake would be pretty high up the list. It’s always been a pleasure at Teenage Fanclub gigs to see someone so obviously enjoying themselves onstage and so, by teaming up with former Gorky’s frontman Euros Childs, the pair have hit upon a winning combination – from both a humour and a melody point of view.

Of course, there’s also the fact that the pair’s voices sound so utterly wonderful together...

Seated behind their respective keyboards/assorted electronic wizardry with just a (temperamental) drum machine for company, Norman and Euros work their way through nearly all of the tracks on their debut album, with the additions of the aforementioned Gloria, a lovely track called Ursula’s Crow, and a cover of Joe Meek’s Little Baby. 

Impossibly catchy single Candyfloss has a few false starts thanks in part to the unpredictable drummer (or possibly more to the unpredictable band members?), but it all adds to the amusement of the evening and it’s all greeted with huge cheers from the enthusiastic audience.

There may be only two people onstage but it’s enough to make for a compelling show. When not dazzling the crowd with their blissful vocal harmonies, they’re entertaining them with their humour between songs – and, as if that wasn’t enough, Euros has a good stab at emulating the solo in Wich is Wich? using only his voice.

Norman, meanwhile, seems to have particular fun making weird and wonderful sounds with a keyboard joystick for the epic electronic end of Cave Dance.

Jonny seems very much the result of two well-respected musicians wanting the chance to let their hair down a little, while still making music as melodic and infectious as that of both Teenage Fanclub and Gorky’s Zygotic Monkey.

Speaking of which, songs by the duo’s “other bands” are perfectly chosen for the encore, with I Don’t Want Control of You preceding Spanish Dance Troupe and a cover of the Everly Brothers’ Let it Be Me finishing everything off nicely.

As the crowds they've recently been charming would agree, Jonny be good...

With thanks to Norman and Euros. Jonny's debut album is out now.