SWEET ON THE BOULEVARD, 1974
Released in November 1974, the Sweet’s Desolation Boulevard was the album that accelerated the band’s status as a major international headlining act, touring with Entec’s supplying lighting and stage effects.
The entourage for the October-December ’74 tour of Europe and the UK included managers David Walker and Ed Leffler, Lindsay Brown from the MAM agency, road manager John ‘Bruno’ Wayte, Jan Frewer, Terry Price and Ian ‘Cuz’ Martin, while Pete Challinger formed part of the Entec lighting crew.
In West Germany, the November schedule included a high profile concert performance for TV show ‘Musikladen’, the successor to the legendary ‘Beat Club’. Pete remembers: “It was the most interesting tour I did with the Sweet. It featured a drum and percussion ‘duet’ by Mick Tucker during the band’s seriously hard rocking version of ‘The Man With The Golden Arm’.
“Mick was actually a seriously underrated drummer in that era. He had a big riser to one side of the stage with a projection screen next to him showing lifesize film of him [as the other half of the duet] that was shot prior to the tour by Bob Foster.”
Sweet biographer and long-time fan of the band Brad Jones paid a glowing tribute to Entec’s touring team in an online forum: “Thank you for all the great work you did with the chaps! I remember seeing such positive reviews of this incredible stage show – one or two described as ‘perfect’ – which takes some damn hard work and commitment!”
