Live Review: The Glorious Sons bring their reckless rock and roll to Cambridge
A lot had happened since Kingston, Ontario’s The Glorious Sons last headlined the room they returned to last night, The Sinclair in Cambridge. The band had previously headlined there last February to about three hundred, have toured with fellow up and comers The Struts, which brought them to the House of Blues this July. A set that clearly proved the band growing when the room went off to their smash, SOS (Sawed Off Shotgun), including the lead singer Brett Emmons jumping into the crowd. Fast forward to last night, where the band is fresh off the release of their new album, “The War on Everything”, and played to a sold out crowd.
From the first few notes, I knew this was going to be a show from The Glorious Sons that I hadn’t seen yet. Years back, I finally got hip to the fact that the majority of the time the band playing picks the songs that they want to play before they go on stage, a curated playlist that sets the energy. Be it Harry Styles having (Man) I Feel Like A Woman start the second his at the time opener Kacey Musgraves walked off the stage to last night’s 99 Problemsplaying before TGS took the stage. That and entering the stage to Power by Kanye West.
Right away, the color scheme threw me off, it was easily the best lighting I’ve seen, and the band looked great on stage. It quickly became clear that the orange and red lights were for songs off the new album while the older songs were played in the shadows of blue. The new record screams happiness and that was proven when Brett said, “I wrote this song for my lady. Not everybody gets to meet someone who understands them. Especially someone who is on the road 3/4’s of the year,” introducing Lean on Me Love. Brett’s love shines through the album and him saying this made all the pieces come together. He got me with the lyric, ‘I’ve never met a woman that I loved that I didn’t loathe’, from Mama. Quickly followed by a huge one for the crowd with I Want You. Brett’s lyric game is on point and the crowd was fully there for it.
But don’t worry, as soon as the colors alternated to blue. We had The Glorious Sons that have developed an incredible cult following. “You like to just look at us and smile, don’t you motherfuckers?” The whole set flowed so smoothly despite bouncing back and forth between the old and new with minimal crowd interaction besides a few one-liners, which were true perfection. Be it, “This is our coming of age story” before Closer To The Sky, to the beginning of the set when a young fan Brett clearly knew previously was brought on to the stage from the crowd and Brett yelling, “Are you going to catch this little man? Don’t let him fall”, and like something out of the movies, the crowd pulled through and allowed the maybe eight-year-old kid to beautifully crowd surf all the way to the soundboard.
Playing their biggest hit, SOS, really only about 45-50 minutes into the set, it was a clear indication the set was coming to a close but the lights went down for an easy three minutes before the band came back on stage for an impressive four-song encore that began in an intimate way with just Brett and touring keyboardist Josh Hewson on stage to play La Cosa Nostra and ending on Pink Motel. Overall, it was a well balanced, clearly curated set that the band clearly put a lot of thought into. This year has been a wild one for the band, and hopefully 2020 will bring them even closer to the level of success and fame they’ve come to enjoy in their home country!
