Rock and roll fans weren’t treated to one impressive performance on Saturday night at The Chameleon Club in Lancaster, but two.
Headliner Greta Van Fleet’s set was as good as I had hoped, but the pleasant surprise came with the opening act, The Glorious Sons, from Kingsland, Ontario, Canada.
My big question about whether or not GVF could transfer their obvious skills and strong sound from the studio to the stage was answered with a resounding “yes,” but despite the strength of most of their songs, it was the Sons who proved more solid throughout.
This stands to reason, as I had never heard of them before and wasn’t even aware that they were going to be there, but it would have been true if that hadn’t been the case.
It wasn’t that they were a better band; rather, having been at it longer than the headliners, they have more songs to choose from. The Sons have released an EP, Shapeless Art, and an LP, The Union, and they will be releasing their second LP, Young Beauties and Fools, on October 3rd.
Greta has only released one EP to date, Black Smoke Rising, with plans for two more EPs to be released in the not-too-distant future. Thus, being so young in the game–and young in general; from what I can gather, the three brothers in the band are the 18 year-old bassist and the 21 year-old twins, who sing lead and play guitar–they just don’t have the songs yet.
Where it is easy to see and hear the potential greatness of this young quartet of Michiganders in big sound numbers like the Zeppelin-esque “Highway Tune” and the EP’s title track, the lack of a great number of songs leaves with them with no option but to play a couple of songs that will not remain in their setlists for tours to come.
The same can be said of The Sons of course, as such is true for all bands, but the ten songs they played had fewer weaker numbers than the 13 of the headliners. “Heavy” and “Kill the Lights” are two of the Sons’ more memorable numbers.
All in all, they were nothing less than two impressive performances, and the next time I hear someone lament how rock and roll is dead or how nobody is playing any “real” rock and roll these days, I have two more bands to help me prove that isn’t true.
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