Tag Archives: Sofar Sounds

3 years of running Sofar Sounds North East

I can’t believe it is coming up to three years of me running Sofar Sounds North East, the past three years have absolutely flown by!

I organised my first Sofar Sounds in October 2022 at Alfie & Fin’s in Tynemouth, and without giving much away, the upcoming October show will make for a nice full circle moment. On the line-up in 2022 was the mesmerising Marie Naffah, who’s become a close friend and who will be performing much bigger stages next month as she’s heading out on tour supporting Newton Faulkner! I’m glad to say she’ll be joining him in Newcastle too, so you’ll be able to catch me down the front at the NUSU.

In our first few months we also had the incredible Peri Rae perform, who recently performed at Boardmasters Festival, and many other festival stages this summer. In March 2023 the incredible Duncan Covey performed at Zapatista, who’s only just come back from a cycle tour around the world! Lewis McLaughlin captivated at one of our living room shows and is back in the north east next month as part of his upcoming tour. Porcelain are about to headline The Grove, and Lilla Shy has been touring the UK and Europe and isn’t showing any signs of stopping anytime soon.

CRANE HOUSE just released their debut single ‘Cuban Heel’ and The Hope The Fear are about to head out on a headline tour. Through Sofar Sounds, and LLIVELY Music, I’ve been able to support so many venues, promoters, organisations, artists, and have had the support of an amazing team of volunteers and it’s brought an incredible amount of magic to my days. I’m grateful for the love and support, and the near future!

Curating Sofar Sounds

When I’m asked what it is I do, I usually simply answer “I work in music and events”, as that is a safe way of saying “a shed load of different jobs”. One of my favourite jobs, however, is one that doesn’t take up much time but always delivers in pure magic. Curating Sofar Sounds Newcastle’s monthly shows is the most gratifying volunteer role I’ve ever fulfilled. There’s a wonderful team of volunteers supporting myself and co-city leader Jay on the evening s of our events by being on the door, checking attendance, liaising with artists, helping on sound, and introducing our artists.

This week we headed to Gateshead’s co-working and independent studio space Orbis Community for another sold out evening. One of the owners of the business, JP, brought his enthusiastic self and made us feel right at home. I had met JP through one of our incredible Sofar Sounds volunteers, which is how we got the space for our event. With one of our initially confirmed artists cancelling his performance on the morning of our show, we had to find a replacement very quickly and found that in Teesside-based singer songwriter J.W. Darwin. He performed a great set of soft but exciting pop tracks, with a good amount of stage chatter in-between songs.

Next up was York/ Newcastle-based singer songwriter Jeremy M who’d sent his music through us and who we got captivated by. His softly spoken voice combined with a warm guitar sound made for a fantastic live experience, a bit more experience and stage presence and we’ve got a star in the making. Last up were Leeds-based outfit VICTORS who performed in acoustic trio form. With influences taken from Jungle and jangly pop outfits they created a very exciting and powerful performance that left us all softly swaying until the very end.

The Sofar Sounds audience is like no other; they sit and listen, interact, and appreciate. They have sold out our shows for the past 24 months, and keep showing up, either we’re doing something well, or they’re just too kind for this world. I think it’s a combination of both. It’s not always easy finding the right space for our events, as we look for the unfamiliar, the slightly odd; hairdressers, cafes at night, cinemas, cocktail bars, wherever we can fit our sound system and audience! Though not always easy, incredibly fun, it’s a task I do with pleasure, as well as finding the right artists for our line-ups, and when all’s been found, it’s meeting our wonderful audience. Every single month, Sofar Sounds is what I look forward to!