It’s a Wednesday evening and London Bridge venue OMEARA is packed to the rafters. By no means ones to disappoint, SOFY and her four-piece reside band are recognized to be fairly the social gathering starters, and everybody desires a chunk.
Noting her key musical influences as Blur, The Stone Roses, Loyle Carner and Simple Life, SOFY has melded 90s rap with Brit-Pop and hip-hop beats to create one thing wholly her personal. Lyrically, SOFY dishes out wit, sass and relatability, singing about every part from poisonous masculinity to navigating crushes in an Arlo Park-esque register.
Whereas SOFY’s recorded tracks carry a lo-fi, bed room pop really feel, on stage, it’s a complete completely different story. Repping a classic England soccer shirt, SOFY kicks off her sold-out headline present with ‘Egomaniac’, one of many singles pre-released from January’s upcoming EP, Bored in Color (Pt. 2). Instantly, the gang begins singing alongside, belting out the refrain together with SOFY as she jumps round.
After a raucous welcome of applause, SOFY dives into ‘Chameleon’, which seems on her first EP, Bored in Color (Pt. 1). After that, she performs an unreleased monitor, ‘Fiesta’, which is after all, properly obtained by the gang, lots of whom appear simply as starry-eyed as SOFY about seeing her declare OMEARA’s stage.
Conserving the vitality up all through the gig, SOFY chats in between every tune, telling tales and joking round. Everybody hollers because the band begins to play Eminem’s ‘My Title Is’, however slightly than a canopy, SOFY cleverly switches out the unique lyrics to introduce every member of her band.
Whereas a variety of SOFY’s songs, like ‘Lads! Lads! Lads!’ and are high-energy, sing-a-long rabble-rousers that even get mosh pits going, the artist showcases her inventive versatility and vocal vary by together with a number of extra sentimental gradual jams within the set. Newest launch ‘btw’ is a mushy, stripped-back single about amicable breakups the place you develop aside when life will get in the best way. As a testomony to the rising star’s magnetism, these tracks held simply as a lot energy over the gang because the knees-up numbers.
“That is an artist who has firmly discovered her sound and is already constructing a cult following…”
Having solely debuted final yr, Leicester-raised SOFY has already had some huge wins. This summer time, she performed a complete host of festivals – most notably to an enormous tent at Glastonbury on the BBC Music Introducing stage – in addition to Latitude, Leeds, Boardmasters and Truck. Elsewhere, her monitor ‘Large Speak’ was added to the FIFA Soundtrack (2023), she carried out a BBC Maida Vale session and has seen performs from Mollie King on BBC Radio 1 and Jess Iszatt on BBC Introducing.
Earlier than launching into ‘Large Speak’, SOFY talks about how a lot getting the monitor featured on the FIFA Soundtrack means to her. Rising up, she and her brothers would play the sport, and over time, the long-lasting soundtrack would introduce her to a few of her favorite bands of all time.
A seemingly faultless set, SOFY and her band made each second depend on the OMEARA stage, coming again out for an encore to play two tracks – the as but un-released ‘He’s Not Into You’, and fan favorite, sunny day bop, ‘Strawberry Milkshake’.
No Large Speak wanted right here, that is an artist who has firmly discovered her sound and is already constructing a cult following. SOFY’s sold-out headline present at OMEARA was undoubtedly a career-defining second. I for one, can’t wait to see what occurs subsequent.
See the view from the pit, captured by Katie McLellan-Salisbury right here:
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