Sophie Lloyd Lights Up The O2 Brixton

Review/Photos by Dave Martin Faversham Photography

Sixth months on from her inaugural headline show at the Underworld in Camden, Sophie Lloyd was back in the nation’s capital this time in a support role for the Mexican Villarreal Vélez sisters “The Warning”.

Performing to a full capacity crowd, nearly ten times that of her previous outing, Sophie Lloyd definitely impressed those in attendance with her stage presence and flowing virtuoso skills. Lloyd was accompanied by her band Chris Painter on drums, Christian Rivers on Guitar and guest vocalist Marissa of Marissa and the Moths.

Lloyd entered the stage to warm applause as she played the intro to top gun sporting iconic aviator sunglass before throwing them into the crowd before launching into “Battleground” from her EP “Delusions”. One thing that was clear was that not only does Sophie now how to shred as shown on both her youtube channel and live performances, but she also knows how to put on a show. She poses throughout her performance in every way imaginable and is a photographer’s dream. Her leaning in and making eye contact with the crowd from the stages was clearly gaining her more fans from the audience gathered to see the headliners. Standing side by side with fellow guitarist Rivers the pair played the harmonised riffs to perfection to massive cheers from those in attendance.

At the end of the track Sophie addressed the Brixton audience before being joined on stage by Marissa Rodrigez to sing “Hanging on” from Sophie’s “Imposter Syndrome” album. Marissa did an excellent job of covering the song originally tracked by Lauren Babic. Rodrigez and Lloyd have clear chemistry on stage dating back from their time performing together in Rodrigez’s band and this chemistry was clear throughout the whole set.  Next to be played was “Won’t You Come” the song that originally featured Rodrigez on Lloyd’s last album. The stage presence continued, and the crowd were clearly enjoying what they heard. A sentiment echoed by the venue and headline act staff backstage.

The set continued with a further track from the “Imposter Syndrome” album “Runaway” which is potentially my favourite on the album. The song that featured Michael Starr of Steel Panter was met with strong support from the audience behind me and people could be heard singing along with the chorus. At the completion of the song Sophie launched into a solo as other members of the band exited the stage before returning and covering one of her most popular youtube shred videos of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”. The crowd participation continued as they could be heard doing their best James Hetfield impressions adding vocals to the instrumental version of the track.

The penultimate song was the title track of “Imposter Syndrome” which Rodrigez sang magnificently. It is not an easy feat to cover any song sang by Lzzy Hale. Last to be played was “Do or Die”, Lloyds second most popular song on spotify. Clapping along, the audience were clearly enjoying themselves as was Painter on the drums. Lloyd with one leg on the bass drum unleashed her solo before the crowd started clapping again.

Sophie Lloyd is an absolute talent and it is only a matter of time before she is selling out venues such as this as a headliner. She is used to larger venues from her work with Machine Gun Kelly but I expect her to be able to do this in her own right. When you have artist such as Matt Heafy (Trivium) and Chris Robertson (Blackstone Cherry) as well as the others named working with you, you know the future is bright for this talented lady.

Setlist 1. Top Gun Theme, 2. Battleground, 3. Hanging On, 4. Won’t You Come, 5. Runaway, 6. Sophie Solo, 7. Enter Sandman (Cover), 8. Imposter Syndrome, 9 Do or Die