Warrington Parr Hall – 06/12/19
There was a buzz of excitement and a lot of glitter as I arrived at Warrington’s Parr Hall last Friday night. The crowd had all come out to see Andy Scott and The Sweet, but before that we had the support band, Novatines. A band who only formed two years ago, but you wouldn’t have guessed. I was lucky enough to hear some of their soundcheck, I was already impressed. Such a full sound, but when these guys got in front of a live audience. Well it was something else. They had the whole package, a great sound, incredible stage presence and great songs.
Their debut album has been produced by Andy Scott and that musical tightness that you associate with the Sweet also runs through the Novatines material. It doesn’t feel like I am watching a new band, these guys are so good and have a great rapport with the audience too. Playing a great selection of songs, they opened with ‘Get It Together’, a classic sounding rock track, with a tiny hint of Cast about it. I particularly enjoyed that one. ‘Hate Love’ was great too, but the absolute highlight of the set was their final song. They slowed everything down, got the audience to get there phones out and shine their torches, it would have been lighters in the old days, and they launched into ‘Silver Screen’. A really powerful, moving song. It had a great opening chord sequence and it was such a dreamy song. It held onto that dreamy feeling, despite getting heavy mid way through. Such a great way to close the set.
The crowd by now were well and truly warmed up and ready for Andy Scott and the boys to strut their stuff and the venue was packed to capacity by now as well. It was time, the band entered the stage to a huge applause and launched into their first song, ‘Action’ and straight away I was captured. The combination of a great selection of musicians on the stage and a fantastic energy in the audience just well and truly blew me away.
‘New York Groove’ followed ‘Action’, this song was one of the bands newer efforts. They didn’t release it as a single until 2012, but it stood up against the classics. The soaring falsettos right at the front of the song. Absolutely exceptional. A very cheeky dip into Alicia Keys New York sang by bassist Lee Small, before returning to the song. I loved it.
‘Hellraiser’ and ‘Burn on the Flame’ followed, before singer Paul Manzi spoke to the crowd asking if we liked the earlier heavier stuff. This received a huge cheer from the die hard Sweet Fans who were out in force in Warrington. ‘The Six Teens’ followed and oh my, what a song! It was really heavy. I wasn’t overly familiar with it, but imagine a mixture of Deep Purple, Uriah Heap with a dash of Iron Maiden and you’re in the right ball park. It blew me sideways. A trio of hard rock followed that would be as at home on the Download stage. ‘Peppermint Twist’ and ‘AC/DC’ followed with an absolutely incredible guitar duel in the latter. Andy Scott and MSG guitarist Steve Mann doing battle. This again was more heavy metal than I was expecting at a Sweet gig, but boy did I love it. Those duelling guitars echoing the heavy metal bands of the past.
The hits kept coming. The energy onstage was electric, Andy Scott shows no signs of slowing down. Occasionally he stops to joke with the audience and chat to them between songs, but he, along with the rest of the band are on fire. ‘Sweet F.A’, Wig Wam Bam’, and ‘Little Willy all follow. By this point the crowd are bouncing and then another track that I wasn’t overly familiar with. ‘Love is Like Oxygen’ was another stunner. A mix of crunchy guitar, disco and amazing falsettos. Add to that an incredible middle ‘Fanfare’ before reprising to the main song. Just utterly mind blowing.
The final three songs were as expected, ‘Fox on the Run’, ‘Blockbuster’ and ‘Ballroom Blitz’. Again, like I said before, the band were firing on all cylinders and these final three songs were no exception. The energy both on and offstage was insane and both band and audience bounced through to the end of the show.
The Sweet put on an absolutely incredible show. It was outstanding. Andy Scott’s guitar playing was mesmerising and I was quite surprised just how heavy some of the gig was. Almost verging on the edges of hard rock and heavy metal at times. I now understand why the likes of Nikki Sixx, Joe Elliott and KISS hold the band in such high regard. The musicians surrounding Andy were incredible too, Lee Small on bass, vocalist Paul Manzi, drummer Bruce Bisland and second guitarist and Keys player Steve Mann. Overall, an absolutely incredible night and if you haven’t seen Sweet before you are seriously missing out.
