By Neil Kerr
I have heard some of Sophie Rogers’ music before and liked it, so much so we had it entered into our single of the week feature in February this year with her track “Free To Fly” which duly won the public poll and became our single of the week with a very respectable 44% of the online vote, a brilliant result for Sophie.
Intrigued and hoping to hear more of Sophie’s Smooth tunes, particularly hoping to catch the songstress live, I was delighted when she contacted me and invited me along to see her perform live. What’s more it wasn’t to be just any standard gig for Sophie, as she was to give her all in the legendary King Tuts Wah Wah Hut. So the date was set, I was going to catch Single of the week winner Sophie Rogers as she performed her debut appearance on the iconic Tuts stage, I may have been even more chuffed about this than Sophie was, but don’t tell her that.
After 2 trains to glasgow from Voice HQ I arrived eagerly early at King Tuts allowing myself time for the customary pre gig beverage and a chat to some of the assembled music lovers. Most of the folks I spoke to were looking forward to seeing Sophie perform, some were there for nothing else and were “just loving Sophie’s music” and “wouldn’t miss this gig for the world”. Having never seen this young musician perform live before these comments only added to my intrigue.
Into the gig we went and before the lady in the spotlight for the night performed I was treated to the fantastic sound of Jemma Kate, a brilliant performance, however that is for another time. Next up was Sophie, looking confident and relaxed she introduced herself to the crowd and began her performance, one girl, one guitar, one legendary stage, and she did it well, Sophies vocal is smooth, clear and mesmerising. Her guitar although she plays it very well, in my opinion is merely a prop, she doesn’t need it to carry her voice rather her voice carries the guitar in fact I struggled to move my concentration from the vocal. When I did though I realised that her work with the guitar was excellent and well rehearsed as the 23 year old songsmith effortlessly worked her way through her set of mainly original music written by herself and performed to perfection.
Now, normally at this stage of a review you would get a breakdown of the songs performed on the day. But the truth of the matter here is I cannot discriminate, I don’t want to single out any of Sophie’s excellent songs for favouritism. You can decide that for yourself by having a listen using the link at the end of this review, or even better, go and see her perform live for yourself! You can find her upcoming gigs using the link to her very well informed facebook page at the end of the review.
One song however was a real treat, not in the sense that it was better than any of the others. It was in fact a cover and she almost sung it acapella to the wonderful sound of her audience singing it back to her which must have felt great. First time in Tuts and she had the crowd eating out her hand, brilliant. What was the song you say? It was “Caledonia” written by Dougie McLean in 1977 and performed perfectly by Sophie Rogers in 2014. Once again her voice was the winner here and again she could easily have pulled the song off minus the guitar.
I loved sophie’s set, it was better than I had expected and I never for one moment thought it would be bad, my high expectations were exceeded with ease by this talented Glaswegian singer songwriter which is always nice when it happens. Great voice, great guitar, great songs all coming together in a great venue before an equally great audience, what’s not to like in that equation.
I want more so if you see Sophie then please tell her that any other invitations will be gleefully accepted. If you do want to go and experience this talented young lady live then why not get to her upcoming EP launch gig in The Buff Club on the 25th of April starting at 7.15 PM. I may well see you there.
Links;
https://www.facebook.com/SophiesSound?fref=ts
https://soundcloud.com/sophierogers
http://sophierogersmusic.wix.com/main
