This was my third time seeing The Sophs, having previously caught them at End of the Road Festival and The Windmill, Brixton in September 2025, and somehow they just keep getting better. This latest stop at the legendary 100 Club felt like exactly the right setting for a band this exciting: sweaty, loud, intimate and packed with music obsessives fully dialled into every influence flying around the room.
Originally formed in Los Angeles by a group of musicians pulling from wildly different musical backgrounds, The Sophs have rapidly built serious word-of-mouth buzz thanks to their explosive live reputation and genre-blurring sound. Recently signed by Rough Trade Records and now embarking on their first full UK tour supporting their debut album, Goldstar, they currently feel poised somewhere between cult discovery and the edge of something much bigger.
And what a room for them to play. Opened in 1942 and forever tied to London’s rock history, the 100 Club has hosted everyone from the Sex Pistols and The Clash to Oasis, Paul Weller and countless jazz legends before them. You can feel that history in the walls the second you walk downstairs. It remains one of the capital’s true surviving music institutions.
As for The Sophs themselves? Absolute chaos in the best possible sense. Their sound is like an explosion of genres colliding at once: indie rock, punk, folk, garage rock, Americana, emo and classic rock, with moments drifting into theatrical spoken-word intensity before suddenly detonating again. Throughout the set there were Russian-sounding flourishes, dramatic eastern European textures and bursts of Spanish or Latin-inspired rhythms, giving the performance an almost cinematic unpredictability. One minute it felt like a punk gig, the next a travelling cabaret fuelled by adrenaline.
The audience skewed slightly older than many newer guitar bands attract, but that actually made perfect sense. This is music for people who hear influences, textures and references.
The set itself was relentless from start to finish. Opening with Richard Burnett’s I’m a Man of Constant Sorrow immediately established the band’s strange collision of Americana and theatrical indie chaos before crashing headlong into THE DOG DIES IN THE END, one of my absolute highlights of the night. Other standout moments included the gloriously frantic SWEAT, the swaggering GOLDSTAR, BLITZED AGAIN and the emotionally chaotic DEATH IN THE FAMILY. Covers of Bill Withers’ Better Off Dead and Mac DeMarco’s For the First Time somehow sat perfectly alongside their own material, further showing the sheer breadth of their influences.
The theatricality of the performance is a huge part of what makes the band so compelling live. Songs don’t simply start and end; they build, collapse, mutate and explode with dramatic intensity, leaving the audience somewhere between a gig, a punk cabaret and something close to musical delirium.
The energy onstage was relentless from all six members. Frontman Ethan Ramon commanded the room with wild-eyed intensity and charisma, while Sam Yuh added layers of atmosphere through the keys. Guitarists Austin Parker Jones and Seth Smades drove the set forward with swirling riffs and huge walls of sound, anchored by the thunderous rhythm section of Devin Russ and Cole Bobbitt. Together they somehow create something both loose and razor-sharp at the same time. And yes… it probably needs to be said that they are all extremely easy on the eye too 😉
Despite the obvious influences swirling around, The Sophs never feel like imitation. There’s something messy, emotional and unpredictable about them that makes every song feel like it could either completely fall apart or become transcendent at any second. Thankfully, it was mostly the latter.
Equally lovely was the atmosphere after the show. Despite the growing hype around them, the band stayed behind to meet fans, sign merch and chat with pretty much everyone who wanted a moment with them. Friendly, humble and genuinely appreciative of the support; exactly the kind of energy you hope bands retain as they grow bigger.
Still one of the most exciting new bands around right now. Catch them while you still can in venues this size.
UTS Rating: 🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸
#TheSophs #100Club #LiveMusic #IndieRock #LondonGig
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