The Glorious Sons at centre stage
Canadian rockers headlining Enmax Centre show
The Glorious Sons have come a long way in seven years of performing and recording. The Kingston, Ont. natives are well known to — and loved by — Lethbridge audiences after numerous performances since they first opened at Average Joe’s years ago for B.C. band Head of the Herd, a show guitarist Jay Emmons remembers along with the eight or so other dates The Glorious Sons have played here.
Emmons, brother of lead singer Brett Emmons, says the years of building the band’s fan base is the way The Glorious Sons wanted to establish their career. Since forming, the band has crossed Canada close to a dozen times, creating memories and making new fans from coast to coast.
That career reaches new heights on Tuesday when The Glorious Sons take centre stage as the headline act at The Enmax Centre.
In their many stops here, The Glorious Sons have performed at Whoop-Up Days and opened for Airbourne among their accomplishments. But now they are the headliners and the timing couldn’t be better.
This year, the band won the best rock album Juno Award for “Young Beauties and Fools,” the honour coming three years after its first nomination in the same category.
The song “Sawed Off Shotgun” from that album has spent nine weeks at No. 1 on the BDS rock chart and the Mediabase Rock Big Picture chart. It’s also generating airplay south of the border where the band has dates after its Canadian swing ends, including at the House of Blues in Chicago. The song “Everything is Alright” earned the band its first No. 1 hit on alternative radio.
“Onward and upward is kind of the thought process” of the band, Emmons replied when asked about The Glorious Sons’ musical journey.
“We always have our sights set on something higher.”
The band recently spent six weeks stateside playing at “a lot of cool venues” and with “S.O.S.” now a top 10 single in the U.S., momentum is building.
That song emerged from an effort Brett had demoed years ago, recalled Jay, “but the song was kind of fluffy and didn’t jibe with who we are. I came up with a little guitar riff .... ” and the rest is history.
“Brett pulled off that chorus and we’ve been off to the races.”
Songwriting for The Glorious Sons is a collaborative effort with every member contributing to the process, he said.
“We throw an idea against the wall and sometimes it sticks. Sometimes it doesn’t.” Frontman Brett, he noted, is the driving force behind the band’s lyrics.
On the S.O.S tour, fans can expect to hear something from The Glorious Sons’ entire catalogue during its two-hour set. That catalogue has produced such wellknown tunes as “Mama,” “White Noise,” and “Kill The Lights.”
Opening for The Glorious Sons are The Beaches, an alternative rock band from Toronto which released its first fulllength studio album “The Late Show” in 2017. Tickets for the show are $46 and $56 at The Ticket Centre and some are still available. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Follow albeebHerald on Twitter.