It's a beautiful moment when a performance ends, watching the crowd turn to one another, eyebrows raised, head titled and exhaling after being impressed by the show they've seen.
At The Grove's Exit Music festival, Sweets elicited such a response with much of the chatter about one particular song. Although most of his set was adrenaline pumping, raucous punk bangers and it's exciting to see the next chapter in his sound - the highlight came from a more sombre moment.
In late 2023, the Newcastle-born-Manchester-based artist released an EP. Tension Free was criminally underrated. At the time I voice noted Sweets to express my love for the release but didn't see or hear the usual murmurs for a project of this quality.
If there's one song you should listen to from the EP (but you should really listen to it all), it's the same one that stole the show at The Grove. All My Heroes (for my friends) is a conceptual track, a tale of drug abuse, mental health and how friendships develop from adolescence to adulthood.
Told from three different perspectives, Sweets' and two of his friends', All My Heroes is a powerful display of gripping story telling. It's easy enough when streaming the song to keep track but even live late on a boozy Bank Holiday weekend, the rapper had the Exit Music festival crowd hanging off of every word.
Every time I hear All My Heroes, the same part catches me completely off guard. It's not even part of the actual song but in the outro. "Sharing smiles only we understand." The type of lyric that stumps me. It's not a quadruple entendre or anything. Instead, just simply profound. Something everyone can understand.
That's the power of this song. So personal to Sweets, yet equally resonant for everyone in that room.
Comments
Post a Comment