Sofar Sounds
Combine someone’s living room, six unsigned bands, and a bunch of cool, creative music lovers; it’s an idea so simple you wonder why you didn’t think of it yourself, and yet so powerful it will change the way you view live music… guaranteed.
Co-founded by Rafe Offer, a music aficionado based in London, Sofar Sounds is an overhaul of the typical concert experience. Rafe and his friend Dave Alexander decided that live music was moving in the wrong direction; people were no longer going to gigs to listen to the bands and appreciate the tunes. Audiences were more interested in getting drunk and catching up. So Rafe and Dave decided on a more intimate way to get the focus back to the performer and the songs.
It all started with Dave on his guitar with some friends, in his living room. The evening was a success, and one friend took the idea to Paris, where again it was received positively. Rafe and Dave brought it to New York and from there it continued to grow. All gigs are live streamed on the Sofar Sounds website, and fans began to contact Dave and Rafe directly to ask if they could perform or host their own version, which is how the event has ended up in over seven countries worldwide and is still growing.
I arrived a little dubious, worried that as a chatterbox, I might find it hard to bite my tongue for several hours and could well find myself in the same uncomfortable situation I did a few years back, when I went to Ronnie Scott’s for a friend’s birthday. There, on making the slightest comment or remark I was “shushed” within an inch of my life, as though I was in a school assembly rather than a jazz bar.
I was not prepared to find myself transfixed, moved, and totally silenced. Although unsigned, the bands involved are remarkably good; “professional amateurs” as Rafe calls them. Each one is carefully selected based on talent, and matched to create an evening that is eclectic, mellow, upbeat, and invites a good old sing along.
The nights are free, all they ask is that if you like the bands you support them. The future of music? Me, Rafe and several rooms full of others think so. Sofar Sounds is currently in Berlin, London, Buenos Aires, LA, Sydney, and New York (among others) so check the site for a night of local music to add to your next trip.
When she’s not entranced by her neighbourhood musicians, Anna Templeton is usually found in Argentina, tucking into an ojo de bife and sipping on a glass of Malbec; all in the name of exploring the culture, of course.
