Music and mystery a winning formula for Sofar Sounds
Secret concert society brings rising performers to respectful audience that has no clue what’s coming
Step inside a stadium or club on a concert night and you’re usually inundated with cellphone-armed fans blocking your view in pursuit of grainy video, or libation-laden crowds aggressively jostling to be nearest the stage.
But that didn’t happen when Toronto-born flamenco artist Tamar Ilana took to the floor at the newly opened Broadview Hotel’s Lincoln Hall event space on a recent Sunday afternoon.
About 130 music lovers sat enraptured by her Se- phardic love songs, so engaged that few reached for their phones — an impressive feat considering they had flocked to the spot never having heard her music and not knowing who would be performing.
They were there because they had scored an invitation to a secret show put on by Sofar Sounds, a global organization that has quietly crept into Toronto, arranging clandestine performances in living rooms, community centres and offices, and attracting local phenoms Royal Wood, Great Lake Swimmers and Donovan Woods.
It works like this: music lovers apply online to attend a show, knowing only the date and neighbourhood it will be held in.
Guests are selected from a pool of 100 to 400 applicants and, a day or two before the show, those chosen are sent an address. They don’t find out who will hit the stage until showtime.
The secrecy element — popularized by Prince and Mumford and Sons — means attendees get to brag about their exclusive night of music, while up-and-coming artists still struggling to build a fan base get connected with crowds they haven’t be able to attract on their own.
“It’s not a shtick,” says Sofar Sounds Toronto director Jon Campbell. “We’re trying to get people to experience their city as much as possible, and we take that to mean both geographically and artistically. The motto is to put the magic back into live music.”
To date they’ve attempted to conjure up that magic at dozens of spots, once even bringing guests to the centre of the Woodbine Racetrack to jam. Their performers have been an eclectic bunch, including indie rockers, rappers, spoken-word performers and gypsy singers who dabble in beatboxing.
They’ve taken their cues from the movement’s founders, two Brits who became annoyed at a London gig in 2009.
“The noise around them was distracting their ability to actually see the show at a bar somewhere, and so they just said this is crazy and they brought the show to their home, where people would sit down, shut up and listen,” said Campbell.
Now the U.K. chapter hosts three intimate shows a night almost every day of the year and the initiative has expanded to 366 cities, including Bogota, Lima, Brussels, Sydney and Shanghai. (Plans are underway to bring it to Guelph, Kitchener and Waterloo soon.)
The Sofar Sounds movement (an acronym for “sounds from a room”) has even been credited with giving the National, Hozier, James Bay, Leon Bridges, Bastille and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs a platform before they became radio regulars.
“It’s not easy to get access to big names. It’s a money thing and it’s a scheduling thing,” says Campbell, of why you’re more likely to see an emerging artist than Beyoncé at Sofar Sounds.
But he insists the events are still of value because “you’re going to be among the next generations of big artists.”
He and the other volunteers behind Sofar Sounds Toronto often discover potential performers at their day jobs in the music industry or through agents pitching new artists, but the Broadview Hotel show’s second act, duo the Visit, requested their slot after performing at one of the organization’s previous shows.
“They bring out great crowds, and it’s a good and rare opportunity to connect with the audience. You can talk with them and get to know them,” said the Visit’s cellist Raphael Weinroth-Browne.
After the Visit came Catriona Sturton, a contact from Campbell’s university radio show days and the former bassist for Halifax teen-rockers Plumtree, whose 1997 song “Scott Pilgrim” helped inspire the cult favourite books and movie.
She had the audience giggling as she blew on her bedazzled harmonica and sang short ditties about the “romance of poutine” and a time when a friend gave her a sweater riddled with moth-chewed holes that the pal’s mom covered up with bee stitching.
As she capped the evening, a handful of guests approached the artist merchandise table with wallets in hand, while others murmured about wanting to add some of the performers to their Spotify rotations.
Many, including IT worker Murugi Murai, vowed they’d be back.
Murai attended her first Sofar
“It was impeccable. Cellphones were away, everyone listening and the focus was really on the music.” TAMAR ILANA FLAMENCO ARTIST
Sounds show at a condo in Nairobi last month. It took no coaxing for her to get her bartender pal Christopher Smith to join her at the Broadview Hotel show.
“I’m an adrenalin junkie, so I was really attracted to it being a secret. I am already thinking about people I know that are interested in doing something off the beaten track that I can invite next time,” said Smith.
Ilana also predicted she would come back, though she griped that performers were offered so little to play that her group Ventanas decided to send just her and one other member.
“I considered even not doing it. It is a lot of artists performing for almost free, but we love playing so we will almost always do it in the end,” she said, requesting the Star not publish her earnings.
Tickets for the Toronto shows, which last around three hours and include three sets, cost $15. The artist’s take is a function of the small audience, the affordable cover and the equipment, crew and venue costs, said Campbell.
Still, not having to book the venue, sell tickets, set up light and sound equipment, and arrange filming on top of performing was a treat for Ilana, who like most burgeoning art- ists takes on most of those responsibilities herself. She added that the audience was a perk, too, because Ilana often plays festivals and for crowds that skew much older than her.
“We were playing to our peers. It was a new audience for us and you really feel the difference,” she said. “It was impeccable. Cellphones were away, everyone listening and the focus was really on the music.”