SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: SWEET – LIVE AT THE CAPITOL (HANNOVER 1991)

SWEET
LIVE AT THE CAPITOL (HANNOVER 1991)
METALVILLE

Sweet continues to mine their archives for another (re) release of live material from the early 1990s. And this is an extremely good thing. Sweet is usually lumped in with ‘glam’ bands or AM pop music of the 1970s, forgetting how powerful they could be as rockers. These releases, including the new Live At The Capitol (Hannover 1991) demonstrate just what a powerhouse this band was (and continues to be). It can be argued that their studio output at the time may not have been as exciting as they were live, and if that is the case, it is great to have these live recordings to demonstrate how well Andy Scott presented Sweet in the 1990s.

Alongside founding member Andy Scott, Sweet at that time consisted of Mal McNulty (Slade), Bodo Schopf (Eloy/The Michael Schenker Group), Jeff Brown (Wildfire), and Steve Mann (The Michael Schenker Group/Lionheart). In many regards a heavy metal supergroup and together to tackle Sweet music. The album is similar to other shows at the time, featuring the hits (“Ballroom Blitz, “Fox On The Run,” “Teenage Rampage,” “Love is Like Oxygen,”) but it is the deeper cuts that make the album more interesting.

“Set Me Free” (originally from Desolation Boulevard) is extremely amped up with some incredibly fast and frantic drumming from Schopf and some great playing from the rest of the band. It is almost unrecognizable from the original, but in a good way. The same can be said for “Burn On The Flame”, where the band tears into the song and goes for broke. A song like “Cockroach” is almost a reinvention from the original from 1976 (Give Us A Wink), and Sweet are simply tearing the song up. It is great.

Live At The Capitol (Hannover 1991) is a good live album. It does have its flaws, such as some of the songs the band choose to do, but the fans attending the show sound like they are enjoying everything the band is putting out. Listening to this recording over 30 years later, one hears a band struggling with their pop rock label and trying to break away from their past while at the same time reinventing it. This incarnation of Sweet is great and they play together well. It is well recorded and a welcome addition to the ever growing Sweet archive catalogue.

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