Glam Jam 2024

Friday 20 September – Leo’s Red Lion, Gravesend

Leo’s has been one of Kent’s finest music venues since the late 70’s. Terry Lee, the owner has hosted many amazing bands at The Red Lion and tonight’s musical entertainment comes in the form of Glam Jam 2024.

Three great bands form the lineup for Glam Jam 2024, the first being a four-piece The Dead Zebras, hailing from London and bringing a set of well crafted rock tunes with some great songs. For a band of relative youngsters they deliver a look and sound very reminiscent of eighties rock bands such as Van Halen and Motley Crue with front man George sounding not unlike a young Vince Neil. Guitarist Ky can really shred while their drummer and bassist Jamie really hold down the grooves. As well as their own tunes, The Dead Zebras pulled off a really rather passable rendition of Van Halen’s Panama, in no part due to Ky’s formidable noodling skills. The band put on a great show, keeping the crowd engaged and warming things up for the next band to take the stage, The Wicked Jackals.

Watford based Wicked Jackals have been around for a few years now with a couple of EPs under their belt and brought a more aggressive sound to the stage. Their set kicked off with a couple of tracks from their 2022 ‘It’s a Fiver’ EP, ‘Over The Top’ and ‘A Bad Excuse’. There were also a couple of tracks from 2019’s ‘About Time’ and a couple of covers, the Cult’s ‘Fire Woman’ and Steppenwolf’s classic ‘Born To Be Wild’. With Ollie’s powerful vocals sitting in the same ballpark as both Paul Di’anno and Ian Astbury, it was no surprise to hear a Cult Classic in there.
The band had a great on-stage presence with a proper old school heavy rock feel – dual guitars courtesy of Harris ‘Rex’ Orfanidis and Carl ‘Ace’ Alsop, pounding drums from Matt Truman and bassist Lex Gifford.

Headlining the night were London glam rock quartet, Star Circus. Mainly playing songs taken from their 2022 debut, ‘Separate Sides’, an album full of insanely catchy and well crafted songs, Star Circus opened with ‘Love Is The Enemy’ a great rocking tune with fantastic backing vocals courtesy of bassist Sophie, along with the rest of the band. In fact the vocal harmonies throughout the whole set were very well done, complimenting guitarist and frontman, Dave’s vocals perfectly. The band teased us with a track, ‘Over And Over’ from their upcoming new album, and throughout the night, Owen showed no sign whatsoever that he’d only recently learned the Star Circus set.
The poppy feel and massive singalong choruses of their songs are often mixed with some pretty heavy riffage, not heavy heavy, but heavy enough to keep the songs exciting to listen to – and once you do, the endless hooks will worm their way into your earholes and stay there for days.
Finishing up the set with the anthemic “Before The Song Is Over’ followed by the guitar heavy riffs of ‘Save Your Life’. It’s fair to say that Star Circus are a heavier outfit live than they are on record but that doesn’t detract from the quality of the tunes on offer, there’s still plenty to sing along to, it’s just even better delivered in a live situation.

The evening, however, didn’t end there. The ‘Jam’ part of Glam Jam 2024 was still to come as members of all three bands took to the stage in no particular combination to perform some classic tracks from yesteryear, starting of with members of Star Circus and The Wicked Jackals performing ‘Lay It Down’ by Ratt. Then The Dead Zebras took to the stage to play a fine rendition of Motley Crue’s ‘Same Ol’ Situation (S.O.S)’. Things got a bit looser from then as different combinations of band members played through ‘Night Train’ by Guns n Roses, AC/DC;s Highway to Hell and Poison’s ‘Talk Dirty To Me’ finally finishing up with another Motley Crue’s ‘Kickstart My Heart’.  A fun ending to a great night of quality music.

Visit leosredlion.co.uk for more information on up-and-coming shows at Leo’s

For more info on Star Circus visit, starcircus.co.uk

For more info on The Wicked Jackals visit thewickedjackals.co.uk

For More info on The Dead Zebras visit facebook/deadzebrasuk