The Glorious Sons At MTelus

Growing up and listening to the radio, it seemed at time like Canadian rock music was pretty much limited to three bands.  Rush, Bryan Adams and Triumph.  Of course, that wasn't the case.  Those three seemed to get the headlines, but there was always a large group of Canadian bands just under the surface.  Luckily, these days the bubble doesn't seem to be as small and there are several good Canadian bands not only getting some needed airtime on the radio, but they headlining large tours as well.  Such is the story of The Glorious Sons.  The last time that I saw them, they were opening for another band in a smaller venue.  Here we are, several years later and they have grown in popularity as much as they have grown musically.  They're not opening shows, but rather headlining a huge cross country tour.  The Unfinished Business tour, named after the fact that it was supposed to take place back in 2020 before you-know-what happened, began right here as Montreal was the opening night of the tour.  Singer Brett Emmons joyous proclaimed that this was the biggest group of people they had played for in this city, and I'm sure that the same will hold true on the other dates as well.  Since last seeing them, the band has released two albums.  Young Beauties & Fools came out in 2017 and was followed up by A War On Everything from 2019, which they were supposed to be touring in support of back in 2020.  They also won a couple of Juno Awards for Rock Album of the Year in 2018 and 2020  A good thing is worth waiting for, and this show was well worth the wait.  It's a fun challenge to photograph these guys because singer Brett Emmons is a ball of energy on stage,  flinging himself from one end of the stage to the other, stopping to interact with fans and bounce around the other band members as well.  His high energy also provided an extra obstacle in the photo pit as not only did we have to deal with his rapid movements, but try and dodge the mic stand as it was constantly being swung around.  Maybe a helmet should be issued along with the photo pass when we pick it up before the show.  Strictly for safety reasons of course, though it would certainly make a cool collectable to add to my growing collection.  The first photograph was taken at f/3.2, 1/160sec, ISO 3200 at 24mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/3.2, 1/320sec, ISO 3200 at 24mm and the third photograph was taken at f/3.2, 1/250sec, ISO 3200 at 33mm.  Here are several more photographs that I took of their performance.

f/3.2, 1/160sec, ISO 3200 at 24mm

f/3.2, 1/160sec, ISO 3200 at 24mm

f/3.2, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 42mm

f/3.2, 1/250sec, ISO 3200 at 24mm

f/3.2, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 33mm

f/3.2, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 24mm

f/3.2, 1/400sec, ISO 3200 at 24mm

f/3.2, 1/124sec, ISO 3200 at 24mm

f/3.2, 1/125sec, ISO 3200 at 30mm

f/3.2, 1/800sec, ISO 3200 at 24mm

f/3.2, 1/320sec, ISO 3200 at 24mm

The concert was opened by fellow rising Canadian rocker JJ Wilde.  If you'd like to see the photograph that I took of her performance, you can follow the link.  Special thanks to Jason Murray and Ian Stanger of Black Box Management and Sophie Lefin of Evenko for getting me a pass to the show. If you'd like to find out more about The Glorious Sons and their music, feel free to follow the link to visit their website.  In these times, we could all use a little dose of rock and roll to get a smile back on our collective faces.  One thing is for sure, even though masks were still in use, you could see the smiles in the eyes of everyone who was there.  It wasn't any ordinary concert, it was glorious.