Live Report: SOAK at the Grand Social

It’s only 8 o‘clock and already a large queue of young, hip, and mostly female punters are forming in the intimate surrounds of The Grand Social smoking area in anticipation for SOAK’s first Dublin performance in over two years.

This gig is the second show of four that 22 year old Derry native Bridie Monds-Watson will perform as part of a mini tour to debut her eagerly awaited follow up to 2015’s Mercury Award nominated and Choice Music Prize award winning album ‘Before We Forget How To Dream’.

Support on the night comes from rising star Kitt Philippa another promising Northern Irish musician whose astoundingly soulful, raw voice soars on their track ‘Human’ and stuns a heaving crowd into pin-drop silence.

After an slightly longer than expected interval between sets due to technical difficulties, SOAK and her industry power-house, dream team band (James Byrne of Villagers acclaim on drums, Thomas Mc Laughlin on guitar and Sophie Galpin on bass) take to the stage and plunge into new track ‘Get Set Go Kid’.

From the outset we can see a departure from SOAK’s earlier one-woman and a guitar show as she crosses the threshold of singer-songwriter into a much fuller more experimental pop sound.

She’s self effacing in an entirely endearing way and humbled by the crowd that have turned up tonight, repeatedly thanking everyone for coming out to see her, explaining how difficult it’s been to pen a second album in the shadows of such a well received debut and her struggles with “writing one chord and then immediately thinking it was shit”.

In a nutshell this is testament to SOAK’s enduring relatability. She’s a natural raconteur, masterfully interweaving hilarious banter about regional accents with her band before bounding into a tender rendition of ‘Sea Creatures’ replete with a three-part transcendental harmony.

Track ‘Valentines’ garnered the most reaction from the crowd, with one punter shouting “galentines” prompting SOAK to declare that “this song goes out to all the gays out there” to rapturous applause, even throwing in a nod to Dublin-based band Pillow Queens in the process.

The raw energy, vulnerability and emotion in the air is tangible and SOAK is at her most comfortable when exploring themes such as intimacy, lust, and deep denial on tracks such as ‘B a noBody’, ‘Blud’ and the irresistibly heavy ‘Oh Brother’.

It’s tracks such as these that gained SOAK media attention in the first place prompting music critics and gatekeepers to pigeonhole her as ‘precocious’, ‘ahead of her time’, or ‘putting older writers to shame’ for her ruminations on ‘serious’ matters like love and loss. Although meant as a compliment, these statements inherently insinuate that only by virtue of being older in age are you allowed to hold valid outlooks on life.

This completely misses the point of artists such as SOAK who so openly and eloquently invite us inside the private and personal world of a visible queer young person navigating her terrain.

To finish the set, SOAK performs a tender rendition of her new track ‘Everybody Loves You’ off her as yet unnamed album and members of the audience use the flash off their phones to illuminate a large disco ball above.

And then in a flash, she’s gone.

SET LIST:

Get Set Go Kid

Knock Me Off My Feet

Be A Nobody

Blud

I Was Blue

De Javu

YBFTBYT

Life Trainee

Sea Creatures

Valentine

Oh Brother

Missed Calls

Everybody Loves You