Soccer Mommy/L'Rain @ Brooklyn Steel, Brooklyn, NY 1/30/25

Bill: Soccer Mommy/L'Rain

Venue: Brooklyn Steel, Brooklyn, NY

Date: 1/30/25

Door: $25 via AXS Resale ($35 was face, AXS had only resale tickets day of show)

9:30pm Soccer Mommy

Active: 2015 (Nashville, TN)

Latest Release: Evergreen (Loma Vista, 2024)

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8:10pm L'Rain

Active: 2017 (Brooklyn, NY)

Latest Release: I Killed Your Dog (Mexican Summer, 2023)

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I had a couple people tell me about Soccer Mommy in recent years including a friend that was considering coming up from DC to check her out, work permitting.  Work did not permit, but I noticed there was a resale ticket going for $25 the morning of the show, so I bought it to satisfy my own curio.  I went in not having heard a note of either band.  

I had an ulterior motive.  My Pilates trainer has been on me to get 10,000 steps minimum in on days I'm not doing a class, so I decided to walk close to damn near 3 miles before the show.   Brooklyn Steel is about a 15-minute walk to the L train anyway so I figured I walk over there and take the subway home.  That got me over 15,000 steps for the day!  

So I walked to the show and got there right in time for L'Rain who went on 5 minutes after I got in.  You could say they are doing a hybrid of genres with sometimes R&B influenced vocals, but decidedly not R&B musically although I could detect a hint of jazz in the jamming.  Since vocalist leader Taja Cheek aka L'Rain primarily does tape manipulation (although she does pick up a guitar here and there) there is some goth rock influence.  This kicked in late in the set with a jam that sounded goth by way of kraut rock.  Mostly sweet vocals although one culminated in an ill-advised scream climax.  Sometimes screaming works, sometimes it doesn't.

Unfortunately, the combo of the 3 mile walk and standing still in a sold-out Brooklyn Steel made the wait between L'Rain's end and Soccer Mommy's 9:30 start seem extra-long and painful as I was starting to stiffen up with no leaning wall and not in the mood to hit the bar and lose my spot.  I was in sober analysis mode all by myself in a big, crowded room.  Would I like Soccer Mommy?  Well, she came on an put that question to rest.  I see why so many people like her and so did I.  She kind of reminds me a bit of Julianna Hatfield although maybe not as good a guitarist.  I was thinking of the Snail Mail show I didn't like where there were more leads but not as good a performance.  Sophie Allison is mostly chord strummy and leaves the other stuff to the session players that came off as hired hands.  That's not to say she's a bad player--apparently, she's been playing since age 6--but if you are looking for a ton of leads from the front person, that's not what she is about.   Pro, but for personality all eyes are on the demure, understated Sophie and her pretty voice.  "Where are you guys going after the show?"  she asks to kill time to fix something guitar related.  She ain't goin' to the after party ha ha ha.  The stage banter is casual and gives the feeling of someone playing a smaller room, but clearly Sophie is confident and even acknowledges her success on a mass scale in such a matter-of-fact manner you can't argue the point whether it is relevant to the material or not.

I didn't hear anything that made me gasp in it's greatness upon live introduction to the material.  Her grungy show closer "Don't Ask Me" I liked and now that I'm listening to the studio version of it, I like it even more so yeah, I'm down with giving some time with her recorded output even if it might veer to commercial sub-grunge that I used to avoid.  She said the audience could leave if we didn't like it, but the whole point of my being there was to hear her material good OR bad.  I didn't hear anything so bad I wanted to leave.    She has the vox to pull out of arrangement genericism.  I'm glad I checked her out.