Sweet Live at the Rainbow 1973 Complete Concert

[GoogaMooga]

Sweet were great, very focused and disciplined under the expert guidance and tutelage of Chinnichap. By "Fox on the Run" they showed they could be every bit as clever, and some of those latter day hits from the Connolly era are among their very best work. Sweet live in 1973 is another kettle of fish. It is terribly sloppy, rushed and excessive, and they have completely lost the groove and replaced it with pyrotechnics and guitar wankery. Makes a good case for not getting the run of Sweet. By 1976 we got one whole live disc on the album "Strung Up", and that gig is much better, although we are not spared an interminable drum solo by Mick Tucker. What say you? Got the 1973 on CD, trade in at Accord?

[Walk In My Shadow]

throw it out if it sounds bad

[GoogaMooga]

I'll trade it in.

[pcqgod]

Hearing Sweet in a live setting brings into clear focus how much they wanted to be seen as real rockers and not teeny-poppers. It's hard to imagine what kids who were listening to "Funny Funny" a few years earlier would have made of "Someone Else Will" with its explicit lyrics and Zeppelin-esque riff. Personally, I love this album. There are better Sweet live albums out there, but if this one sounds too ragged for you, you wouldn't like the others.

[GoogaMooga]

Hearing Sweet in a live setting brings into clear focus how much they wanted to be seen as real rockers and not teeny-poppers. It's hard to imagine what kids who were listening to "Funny Funny" a few years earlier would have made of "Someone Else Will" with its explicit lyrics and Zeppelin-esque riff. Personally, I love this album. There are better Sweet live albums out there, but if this one sounds too ragged for you, you wouldn't like the others.

I'll give it another listen before I decide.

[LMG]

Hearing Sweet in a live setting brings into clear focus how much they wanted to be seen as real rockers and not teeny-poppers. It's hard to imagine what kids who were listening to "Funny Funny" a few years earlier would have made of "Someone Else Will" with its explicit lyrics and Zeppelin-esque riff. Personally, I love this album. There are better Sweet live albums out there, but if this one sounds too ragged for you, you wouldn't like the others.

I'll give it another listen before I decide.

Don't bother - it is a disastrous release.

Spend the time listening to something else. I got it and I wish I never had. Sometimes I wish it did not exist, in fact. But it is what it is, and there is a reason for that:

This is the same Christmas Show at the Rainbow from December 1973 that appears on the Strung Up album in 1975. You make the mistake of thinking they are different shows - they just sound totally different because they are different recordings of the same show.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strung_Up_(Sweet_album)

The problem is that the 1999 issued Live At The Rainbow 1973 uses a crappy mono recording of the show made from the sound board, the show was also recorded in stereo to a multi-track desk. When Strung Up was reissued in 2016, more tracks were added to the live disc from the show but they again used this terrible mono recording.

The reason for this is that the original multi-track stereo recording failed to pick up the snare drum, so it was overdubbed by Mick Tucker for the Strung Up album original issue, which presented seven tracks in a good stereo mix.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_at_the_Rainbow_1973

The motivation is that from the nineties onwards they want to issue the whole show, but the multitrack recording is missing the snare drum on the bonus tracks. Presumably they were worried about complaints if tracks on the whole show versions switched between the mono and stereo recordings depending on the song.

I have been terribly disappointed twice - once when I got the Live At The Rainbow 1973 you have, and last year when I bought the CD reissue of Strung Up. The only way to get the original stereo recording is to get Strung Up on vinyl, or on the original Japanese or US CD re-releases, which are rare and costly. And even then you won't get the extra tracks which have only ever been released in the crappy mono recording on the CD you have and the more recent worldwide reissue of Strung Up.

It sounds like a bootleg, but isn't. It is a different recording of the same show - is this a first in rock music history?

Poor Sweet! Poor Sweet fans!

Hope that helps.

[Brickyard Jack]

Hearing Sweet in a live setting brings into clear focus how much they wanted to be seen as real rockers and not teeny-poppers. It's hard to imagine what kids who were listening to "Funny Funny" a few years earlier would have made of "Someone Else Will" with its explicit lyrics and Zeppelin-esque riff. Personally, I love this album. There are better Sweet live albums out there, but if this one sounds too ragged for you, you wouldn't like the others.

I'll give it another listen before I decide.

Don't bother - it is a disastrous release.

Spend the time listening to something else. I got it and I wish I never had. Sometimes I wish it did not exist, in fact. But it is what it is, and there is reason for that:

This is the same Christmas Show at the Rainbow from December 1973 that appears on the Strung Up album in 1975. You make the mistake of thinking they are different shows - they just sound totally different because they are different recordings of the same show.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strung_Up_(Sweet_album)

The problem is that the 1999 issued Live At The Rainbow 1973 uses a crappy mono recording of the show made from the sound board, the show was also recorded in stereo to a multi-track desk. When Strung Up was reissued in 2016, more tracks were added to the live disc from the show but they again used this terrible mono recording.

The reason for this is that the stereo recording failed to pick up the snare drum, so it was overdubbed for the Strung Up album original issue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_at_the_Rainbow_1973

The problem is that they want to issue the whole show, but the multitrack recording is missing the snare drum on the bonus tracks. Presumably they were worried about complaints if tracks on the whole show versions switched between the mono and stereo recordings depending on the song.

I have been terribly disappointed twice - once when I got the Live At The Rainbow 1973 you have, and last year when I bought the CD reissue of Strung Up. The only way to get the original stereo recording is to get Strung Up on vinyl, or on the original Japanese or US CD re-releases, which are rare and costly. And even then you won't get the extra tracks which have only ever been released in the crappy mono recording on the album you have and the more recent worldwide reissue of Strung Up.

It sounds like a bootleg, but isn't. It is a different recording of the same show - is this a first in rock music history?

Poor Sweet! Poor Sweet fans!

Hope that helps.

You are the king!
Can you now please explain similarly lucidly something else equally complicated, like the war in Syria.

[LMG]

You are the king!
Can you now please explain similarly lucidly something else equally complicated, like the war in Syria.

The ongoing Syrian conflict was caused over a well-intentioned discussion of Live At Leeds by The Who which was organised as a respite during prolonged talks over border disputes and power sharing. Sadly, it was not recognised that at the time there were at least three substantially different versions of the recordings on CD, and no allowances were made for this.

A crucial point came when a member of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which only had access to a poorly recorded mono cassette version dubbed from the original 1970 LP (not surprisingly given their history as a loose confederation of highly mobile militias) commented that the crackling noises on the album which derived from faults in the PA during the original recording, were annoying and intrusive. A spokesperson for the ruling Syrian Arab Republic, who had access to the then-latest 2001 Deluxe CD edition bantered that there were no crackling noises (these had been digitally excised, as a UN briefing paper readily available at the time pointed out), and that the SDF representative ought to go and have his ears syringed. Unfortunately, a stressed and fatigued interpreter at the talks translated this as 'having ears unfit to hear the word of God', which inflamed the entire SDF contingent and resulted in the collapse of the talks and resultant civil war.

It is estimated that the conflict has resulted in over four million displaced persons and refugees to date.

Back to the Sweet perplexity. Helpfully, a reviewer explains with even more clarity and detail what went wrong with the Rainbow 1973 recordings and how they affect fans on an almost daily basis:

As for the "Live at The Rainbow" tracks, two separate recordings were made; a direct to mono recording and a multitrack recording. Unfortunately, when the multitrack tapes were played back in the studio, the track that should have contained Mick Tucker's snare drum was blank. The late Mr.Tucker then perfectly dubbed in the snare drum....but only for those songs that the group intended to release. For the other songs, the only tape source with the snare drum is the direct to mono recording. I was expecting a combination of stereo and mono tracks on the live CD, but the compiler has opted to take all of the live songs from the mono tape. The sound is passable on the live tracks, though there's a nasty momentary drop-out on "Hellraiser". They should have used stereo where available, because the live "Hellraiser" is one of the multitrack recordings where Mick Tucker did overdub the missing snare drum. The stereo version doesn't have this jarring drop-out.
If the quality of this release had been better, I would have given away the Capitol Records Japan CD (titled "Anthology", but containing the original "Strung Up" musical & mix contents and artwork) to a friend, but now I must hold onto it for the stereo live tracks. That release wasn't perfect either, since one of the studio tracks was audibly dubbed from scratchy vinyl.

[Mike Boom]

[GoogaMooga]

Very helpful, thanks, LMG! Well, I wasn't particularly enthused about the Strung Up edition either, turns out they are the same gig! So, the Rainbow will go to Accord, Strung Up I'll keep for the studio disc.

[Lord Rother]

Very good LMG!

[Brickyard Jack]

You are the king!
Can you now please explain similarly lucidly something else equally complicated, like the war in Syria.

The ongoing Syrian conflict was caused over a well-intentioned discussion of Live At Leeds by The Who which was organised as a respite during prolonged talks over border disputes and power sharing. Sadly, it was not recognised that at the time there were at least three substantially different versions of the recordings on CD, and no allowances were made for this.

A crucial point came when a member of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which only had access to a poorly recorded mono cassette version dubbed from the original 1970 LP (not surprisingly given their history as a loose confederation of highly mobile militias) commented that the crackling noises on the album which derived from faults in the PA during the original recording, were annoying and intrusive. A spokesperson for the ruling Syrian Arab Republic, who had access to the then-latest 2001 Deluxe CD edition bantered that there were no crackling noises (these had been digitally excised, as a UN briefing paper readily available at the time pointed out), and that the SDF representative ought to go and have his ears syringed. Unfortunately, a stressed and fatigued interpreter at the talks translated this as 'having ears unfit to hear the word of God', which inflamed the entire SDF contingent and resulted in the collapse of the talks and resultant civil war.

I expect this is rather more justification than the real causes.

[The Slider]

I was there.

[The Slider]

The Rainbow, for the Sweet concert.
Not Syria for the war.

[pcqgod]

To my ears, the sound quality on the 'Strung Up' cd reissue sounds better than on LatR, even if it is from the same tape source. I've never heard the original vinyl version of 'Strung Up' so I never felt let down, though now I'd like to hear that stereo recording.