Arriving at the annual WinterStorm festival in Troon, Scotland, in late November is always a proper treat, and I can think of no better Christmas tradition. The venue is steeped in atmosphere, the audience and staff members are friendly and welcoming, the catering and selection of beers are excellent, and the line-up is always superb. In short, it is not to be missed.
While many fine bands and artists delivered memorable performances across the whole weekend, including Demon, the Skids, Ugly Kid Joe, These Wicked Rivers, Powell Payne, Kingdom of Madness, High Fade, and Baphomet, I felt a very strong urge to briefly mention just how magnificent it was to witness legendary British glam rockers Sweet on stage on Friday night. A more fitting headliner act could simply not have been found by the friendly organisers of WinterStorm. The band had absolutely everyone singing along, clapping, and losing themselves to the grooves and tones of main man Andy Scott and his immensely talented partners in crime. I even spotted a couple of photographers dancing and completely forgetting why they were there and what they were meant to be doing.
The act sold millions of records in their heyday, but it sets my teeth on edge whenever people refer to them as a “singles band”; they were more than that and released some brilliantly crafted, cleverly arranged, and surprisingly heavy LPs such as Sweet Fanny Adams (1974) and Give Us a Wink (1976), just to list a couple of examples. Their latest offering, Full Circle (2024), is up there with the best of them, too.
The hits and anthems came thick and fast, and the show never lost any of its momentum. Kicking things off with ‘Action’ ensured that the entire venue erupted from the get-go, and Sweet never strayed from the path of kick-ass rock music that reminded us of better times. ‘Hell Raiser’, ‘Burn on the Flame’, ‘Lost Angels’, ‘Teenage Rampage’, ‘Set Me Free’, ‘Love Is Like Oxygen’, and the punchy rabble-rousing trio consisting of ‘Fox on the Run’, ‘Blockbuster’, and inevitably ‘The Ballroom Blitz’ made for a perfectly entertaining set. Plenty of other songs also did the trick, one being the riveting ‘Circus’ from last year’s Full Circle album.
There were a few technical problems throughout that annoyed Scott quite a bit, and their stage tech was working as hard as the band that night. Being the pros that they are, they soldiered on, and I dare say that many of us were unaffected by it. The sound was powerful and crunchy without sacrificing any clarity or definition, so to these ears it was pure bliss. As vocalist Paul Manzi succinctly (and smilingly) summed up the hassles the quintet was having with respect to the monitors: “That’s life, isn’t it?”
That Andy is a legend is unquestionable, but the other four members of the constellation deserve praise for firing on all cylinders and being right on the money from beginning to end. Each musician brought something unique and charismatic to the table, and it was heaps of fun seeing the interaction between bassist/vocalist Lee Small and the inimitable guitarist Jim Kirkpatrick (FM) throughout. The latter had joined the ensemble on short notice as a session guitarist to fill in for Tom Cory, who had just become a father and was absent from parts of the tour for obvious reasons (assuming I heard correctly).
One reason why this show meant so much to me on a personal level, apart from the purely musical qualities and memorable aspects of the performance itself, is that I inherited a bunch of old vinyl singles by Sweet from my aunt in 1995. That was around the time that I discovered hard rock and heavy metal. There was something special about watching the group in the flesh thirty years later and being as thrilled and excited as I was when I was a kid listening to their catchy tunes for the first time. That same unadulterated and palpable sense of joy coursed through me now as it did back then. Call me a nostalgic fool, but the songs are unarguably timeless, as evidenced by the reception they received at the fabulous WinterStorm festival on Friday night. It truly was an event and a happening to remember.
Sweet performed on the 28th of November in Troon, Scotland.
