The future is bright, the future is with Inglorious
South Coast mob Western Sand have – as Tyler Hains, their singer, is keen to point out – been here before. MV was too, when they opened for Michael Schenker back at the tail end of 2014. The Bournemouth based quartet were good then, make no mistake about it, but the improvement in them in the intervening 18 months is pretty stark. There seems to be a swagger about them – a new found confidence if you will – that only comes with playing show after show. “Black Water Resolution” thumps, and the brilliant “Welcome To The Badlands” is a real highlight, before “Nothing To Lose” is shot through with all the determination of a band who knows it is ready for some kind of breakthrough. Hains, who uses that last song as an excuse to cut loose and enjoy himself on the guitar, is happy enough to split the large crowd into two for a singing and screaming contest and is learning how to work an audience as he goes along and they win over plenty of converts here. Western Sand, then. A band on the right direction.
There was just a suspicion that Inglorious were the real deal even before this. They have packed a lot into a very short time. Their debut album – lest we forget – only came out in February, and they have already toured with The Winery Dogs as well as their own jaunts.
Now, headlining again, it feels a touch early to be saying they are here to prove themselves as being as good as we thought they were, but having played Download this weekend, it does seem that these gigs are a little bit more important than they might ordinarily be for a band of this vintage.
So, those initial suspicions, then? Right or wrong?
Ok, lets make this is simple as we can. Inglorious rule, and it not a case of if they are going to be huge, it’s a case of how long it takes them and just how big they get.
A slightly changed set here still starts with “Until I Die”, “Breakaway” and Rainbow’s “I Surrender”. It still contains “High Flying Gypsy” and the phenomenal pair of “You’re Mine” – complete with that chorus – and the extraordinary power ballad “Bleed For You, and well might it, as they are both brilliant songs, but its their depth that means that Inglorious have longevity. They play a new song “No Good For You” which proves that album number two might be rather good, and they have a go at an “Unplugged” section which takes in “Wake” and a thoroughly interesting take on Deep Purple’s “Burn”, which neatly explains that these boys can really play.
They end with “Girl Got A Gun” and, as they do, the evening’s first show of anger as singer Nathan James thanks the crowd for supporting a new British Band, then adds pointedly: “someone tell Classic Rock, will you….?”
That gives a clue to the fact that there is still some sniping in some idiotic corners about the fact that James sung on The Voice, and the band were put together by their manager – a point they have never hidden.
The thing is, that neither of those things matter an iota when faced with first the power James possesses, and his consummate skill as a frontman, but also the incredible talent that Inglorious have, and for a band at this stage of their evolution to be this good is almost unheard of.
So, rather than worrying about what people say, or what they don’t print, how about this? If Inglorious live by the maxim of “be so good they can’t ignore you,” then when they are in arenas in a few years’ time, the naysayers will claim they loved them all along.
Inglorious are absolutely the real deal, and yeah, they are the next big thing.
