Matthew Sweet at Islington Assembly Hall

Matthew Sweet
Bryde
Islington Assembly Hall, 18 December 2018

Matthew Sweet hasn't played in the UK for 21 years! Well, according to a member of the audience anyway but Sweet himself seems to agree. He certainly hasn't played a solo gig here for a long, long time. That said, I did see him live before without realising it, as part of the short-lived supergroup The Thorns (formed with Pete Droge and Shawn Mullins) when they were supporting The Jayhawks in 2003. At the time I didn't know who they were so I certainly didn't appreciate who I was seeing. Thankfully, 15 years later Sweet is finally back to treat us with some power pop gems.

When I first arrived at Islington Assembly Hall though, at least 30 mins after the doors open, I was pretty shocked at how empty the venue was. I guess staying away from London that long doesn't help your drawing power, although thankfully the hall itself filled up by the time Sweet hit the stage (the balcony remained empty though, so it certainly wasn't a sell-out).

Opening for Sweet was a Welsh singer called Bryde, otherwise known as Sarah Howells who was previously one half of the band Paper Aeroplanes.  I wasn't particularly familiar with Howells' previous work but with her fringed hair, stripey turtle neck and buttoned mini skirt she looked so incredibly 90s indie chick and at times looked like Liz Phair's double.

Howells' music as Bryde definitely has a loud 90s vibe though and, while she undoubtedly had a great voice, it probably lost something by performing it alone with just her electric guitar: her sound deserved some drums and bass to properly appreciate it I think. That said, she definitely went down well with a crowd that certainly remembered the 1990s well.

When Sweet finally took to the stage he definitely looked older and larger than I remembered but the dude is well into his 50s now. Despite this, with his floppish blonde hair, glasses and wide smile was still instantly recognisable as the Sweet of old.

Over the last couple of years Sweet has been particularly active, releasing two albums after things being rather quiet from him for most of this decade (solo-wise at least, we did get an Under The Covers album with Susanna Hoffs in 2013), so I was sure this would be a showcase for the new material. Happily for me who has never seen him solo before, instead Sweet gave us a nice range of material from over the years and a good dose of his classic album, Girlfriend, which, let's be fair, most are here to hear given it is one of the best albums of the 90s and that's something to celebrate.

Kicking things off with Time Capsule from 1993's Altered Beast and Pretty Please from last year's Tomorrow Forever, it was clear this show would be a wonderful rush of power pop joy.

Of course I can't deny that it really got thrilling for me when, after shouts of requests that all were asking for songs from Girlfriend, Sweet grinning from ear to ear, treated us to a double punch of Winona and Divine Invention. All these years on they both sounded as brilliant and energetic as ever.

I loved hearing other 90s tracks such as Sick Of Myself  and We're The Same from 100% Fun and Someone Pull The Trigger from Altered Beast but, man, those Girlfriend tracks were so good to hear live finally. He gave us six in all including an encore of Evangeline which was requested at the start and damn they sounded good. There is a reason why that album is considered a classic and the songs really do sound as great over 25 years later.

Sweet did talk a little, explaining that he was primarily in Europe for a tour of Spain and he decided to finally return to these shores for this date, seemingly to test the waters and see if there was any demand for him here (at the end he promised to return soon as the response to this show was definitely more than positive), he also apologised for his voice as he had a cold, but really you couldn't tell and he appeared in good spirits throughout.

It helped that he was backed by not one but two members of another power pop band, Velvet Crush, bassist Paul Chastain and drummer Ric Menck, as well as an excellent wailing guitarist called Jason Victor, but it was Sweet himself that impressed the most, his voice sounding as melodic as ever and those tunes still bringing plenty of joy to our hearts.

Let's hope it's not another 21 years before he returns to the UK.