That they still exist is little short of a miracle — the resurgence of Scot pop has passed them by and they have been dropped by a succession of record labels — yet as their small but loyal band of fans would be only too pleased to tell you, Teenage Fanclub have never stopped making great music. Admittedly, there have been patchy albums along the way and the band’s insistence on sticking with an unfashionable, Sixties pop-rock sound hasn’t helped their cause, but as the stripey, Man at C&A-style jumper the frontman Norman Blake sported at a packed Scala made only too clear, Teenage Fanclub have never cared about being cool.

The Scala show and a second gig in Glasgow this week were essentially warm-ups for a full UK tour in May and the chance to road-test tracks from the band’s seventh album, Man-Made. That both sold out well in advance was a sign that Teenage Fanclub still have some commercial muscle, but hopes that Man-Made might put them back in the charts were dashed early on in London. The night’s opening numbers, the new songs It’s All In My Mind and Time Stops, had lovely melodies and singalong lyrics but could have come from any Fanclub album of the past decade.

The band fared better with tracks from their back catalogue that reminded fans that the quartet used to be able to rock out rather than simply rely on the sweet harmonies of the dual vocalists Blake and fellow guitarist Raymond McGinley and a passion for the Byrds and Big Star.

The 1990 single God Knows It’s True and the superb Versimilitude, from the 1995 Grand Prix album, were greeted with cheers from a crowd made up mainly of men in their thirties and forties and seemed to help Teenage Fanclub relax. Indeed, Blake admitted that they had only just warmed up, and from then on the band stepped up a gear. During the old songs About You, Mellow Doubt and Sparky’s Dream, it was hard to believe that the Scots had ever stopped having hits. Even better, the blistering new number Slow Fade suggested that they could be chart-friendly after all.