By Jonny Bakes
In an unusual turn of events, I’ve not had to travel across the country to get to tonight’s gig. Instead I merely had to walk down the road from my house because, in what is possibly an UR first, I’m here for a gig in Barrow-in-Furness. This small forgotten area of the country is mostly known for its shipbuilding heritage, but as the second biggest town in Cumbria you may be surprised at the calibre of bands that pass through. Tonight is certainly a high calibre event, with legendary glam rock band The Sweet hitting the town for the first time since 1973 to bring us a night of glam goodness. Considering this is right on my doorstep, there was no way that I could miss this one, so I got myself down to The Forum to see what’s in store.
For those who aren’t aware, The Sweet currently exist in two flavours with each one boasting a band member from the classic lineup – one in the UK and the other in the US. The flavour we have tonight is the UK variant which features guitarist Andy Scott who is instantly recognisable for his high-pitched vocals. Joining The Sweet on this tour are the young four-piece alt-rock band from Bath, Novatines, who have been making a name for themselves since 2017 with an appearance at Camden Rocks festival and airtime on national radio stations. That’s all we have for us tonight, hence the slightly later start time of 8pm, which allows the hordes of locals more time to get dolled up in their best spangly clothes in anticipation for the main event!
Novatines get things underway with their high energy performance, which has a distinctly ‘90s sound to their alt rock style which seems to go down well with this crowd here in Barrow. They certainly succeed in getting the crowd moving around and getting their groove on, albeit with some questionable dance moves from some of the gents in the crowd!
The highlight of their set comes in the form of new single ‘Come Alive’, which is due to be debuted on Radio 2 in the coming days. The guys manage to show a lot of passion as they blast through this one, and this certainly spreads into the crowd, successfully warming them up.
The grim weather must have discouraged a few people from making the trip out tonight, although you would expect the locals to be used to a bit of rain, as there is still a fair bit of space in the Forum by the time The Sweet hit the stage. Showing that they’ve still got it, the band waste no time and launch into a near perfect rendition of ‘Action’ that immediately grabs this crowd’s attention. I’m particularly impressed that they are able to nail the vocal harmonies in this track, particularly considering the unfortunate recent personnel changes, and their young buck of a vocalist (Paul Manzi, formerly of Cats in Space) does a great job of leading the show with his serious strutting.
Following this up is one of the newer songs from the ‘New York Connection’ album, which featured covers and mashups with a unique Sweet spin. Here we’re treated to the reworking of Hello’s ‘New York Groove’ but with a hint of Alicia Keys’ ‘New York’ and this is where things get really interesting. As bass player, Lee Small, absolutely belts out the chorus for ‘New York’ I’m completely taken aback by the quality of his voice. He very nearly outshines Paul during this song in my opinion!
The relatively low turnout doesn’t go unnoticed by the band, with Andy Scott making reference to the joke “did you all come in the same taxi?” But absolute credit to the band, they claim that they will always play at 100 per cent regardless of crowd size, and they continue to show this as they power through hit after hit, much to the delight of the crowd. This is followed by ‘The Six Teens’ and their Australian number one hit ‘Peppermint Twist’ which invokes some absolutely fantastic dance moves from this Barrovian crowd, perhaps enhanced by the beers that have been flowing freely all night!
Over the course of the set we’re treated to early hits like ‘Wig-Wam Bam’ and ‘Little Willy’, which we get back to back for good measure, as well as ‘Turn it Down’ and Teenage Rampage’ before we reach another huge hit with ‘Love is like Oxygen’ which includes an impressive musical interlude, I mean you’ve got to give the young lad a break right? The stamina of the rest of the band really shines through here, considering the frequent jokes they make about their age tonight, their playing absolutely doesn’t reflect that!
The regular set ends with ‘Fox On The Run’, which I’m pretty sure the entire crowd sing along to! But it’s obvious that there will be an encore as there is a distinct hole in the set list so far in the form of ‘Blockbuster’ and ‘Ballroom Blitz’ so it’s no real surprise when Andy and the gang return to the stage to launch into ‘Blockbuster’. And then finally we get to the song that some of these fans have been waiting for all night, and the whole room goes absolutely wild for ‘Ballroom Blitz’ which, like every other song tonight, is spot on. I was particularly impressed that drummer Bruce Bisland doesn’t seem to have missed a beat all night which considering he has 27 years playing with The Sweet under his belt, he’s not exactly a spring chicken anymore! He absolutely nails ‘Ballroom Blitz’ though, with its instantly recognizable rhythm.
That’s our lot for tonight. It has been a seriously impressive set from The Sweet who have pulled out all the stops in this small corner of Cumbria. It really does say a lot about the professionalism of a band when they’re able to give it all in front of a small crowd as well as the massive crowds they have been used to in the past. With any luck we might get some more big bands through to Barrow in the future (not least for my fuel costs sake) but to do this, the locals will need to continue supporting this and hopefully begin to draw in bigger crowds from across south Cumbria.
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