Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires are a hard rocking four piece band from Alabama. The main man himself earns his licks with the excellent Dexateens. It promises to be a loud night of Southern rock. And so it proves.
The fifty hardy souls who were there for the band’s first ever London gig witnessed from note one a tsunami of sound that you either went with, rode the wave or were swallowed up and spat out onto Hackney High Street.
It was loud, dirty, raw, southern rock played with gusto and energy from the whole band to an enthusiastic albeit small crowd. The music space in Oslo is a good size but the lack of numbers probably didn’t dampen the sound enough and the vocals were sometimes lost in the cacophony of guitars. In the brief respite from the wail of the guitar you could really appreciate what a fine voice Mr Bains has and this is finely demonstrated on the band first album.
The set leaned heavily from the bands second album which is full of great songs, low production values and a volume switch firmly set to above 10.
A great band slightly let down by sound issues and small crowd but this did not stop them from giving it all. However I am concerned that we are seeing the death by a thousand cuts of guitar bands. The last two gigs by American guitar based bands who for different reasons haven’t played here for years or ever were so poorly attended. You could comfortably fit the combined audience of this one and Drivin n Cryin into the Borderline. Whether this is poor promotion or lack of interest I don’t know but I sincerely hope it’s not the latter.
I will for one will do my best to keep the sound of Americana rock, southern rock and hard rock alive and kicking. Keep on rockin y’all.