Sophie Lloyd is recognizable to you. You’re an online metalhead even if you’ve never heard of her name. This indicates that you have probably seen her on YouTube at some point, performing amazing renditions of classic rock songs like “Stairway To Heaven” and “Sultans Of Swing.
With 1.19 million members, Sophie’s viral stardom has given her a lot of opportunities. She started out as a bedroom musician in Britain and is now Machine Gun Kelly’s live guitarist. In addition, she started a career creating original music. Trivium, Halestorm, and other vocalists sang over her fiery solos on her debut album, Imposter Syndrome, released last year.
Sophie’s debut solo performance was tonight at London’s 500-seat Underworld, and it sold out quickly, as expected. It also gets off to a promising start, with the guitarist and her backing band mounting the stage and playing two of her first original songs, Bulletproof Revolver and Battleground. Between songs, she also demonstrates her charm by speaking to the packed audience in a modest and giddy manner.
But that fever pitch sags quickly. Sophie’s first vocalist, Gaz, a geezer, joins her onstage. Considering how many different voices were on the thing, he does fairly well as he leads the instrumentalists through a number of Imposter Syndrome tracks. However, it doesn’t appear like that’s the reason people came tonight; many of them wore shirts honoring AC/DC, Iron Maiden, and other classic rock stars, and any desire for the songs that made Sophie famous is nearly completely unsatisfied. Fans only receive three reinterpretations from the past in 80 minutes: Sandman and Thunderstruck appear one after the other, followed by a presumably impromptu shred that features a Super Mario Bros. theme.
Marisa Rodriguez of the hard rock band Marisa And The Moths is the second and last performer of the evening. After more originals, the audience has clearly diminished by the time Sophie et al. have been onstage for an hour. Machine Gun Kelly’s “I Think I’m Okay” is the final cover of the evening. Only two people applaud when Marisa announces that a pop punk song is playing in a room full of hard rock acolytes.
It would be absurd to claim that Sophie Lloyd is not a top-tier guitarist. The rock and metal oldies that have been a staple of her channel for years were hardly apparent in what she played tonight, which was quite inconsistent with her reputation. This time, what may have been a sentimental celebration occasionally seemed a bit too trite.