Soko @ Oxford Arts

In a music world jam-packed with Internet sensations and overnight fame fare for fifteen year olds, it was no surprised when the masses took to a cute little French girl with gutter mouth and an adorable accent with an interesting trademark of ‘frenglish’ if you will.

Soko set the Internet and airwaves alight with her single ‘I’ll Kill Her’ late in 2007. The song detailing her desire to kill the girl who caught a love interests eyes over her and projects their future together in a ‘what would have been’ scenario, all ending in threats.

The first time I heard her it was love and after seeing the petite Parisian in person and perform, I can say it’s safe I’ll never love again. Unrequited loves a bitch right?

After a few wines at The Exchange a primarily female crowd filed into the depths of Oxford Arts and awaited patiently throughout the support. Cuthbert and the Night Walkers were amazing but played a little too long for an opener. They kind of sound like early Architecture and Helsinki crossbred with Arcade Fire and B52’s. I dug it.

Anyhow, we waited on for another half hour of sound checks and such and in great anticipation became slightly restless. Alas, at about 10 o’clock the red curtain exposed three keyboards one on which sat a tiny cat lantern, an assortment of acoustic guitars, ukuleles, bass and a miniture drum set. Oh and then emerged a sleepy looking Soko almost out of nowhere!

She’s quite short and dressed in a loose white singlet and her voice is as squeaky and as cute as you imagine when she says hello and declares her jet lag.

Opening with a proclaimed lullaby, I bent down to grab my camera and it’s utterly quiet. You could literally hear me rummaging through my shit; the crowd was entirely engaged in the tiny little voice.

The song came to a holt and the Parisian became alarmed realizing she had not lit her incense and frantically rush around the stage and lit the two sticks stating that “now she could play”.

Soko introduced her entourage of two and set into ‘Happy Hippy Birthday/They Shoot’. The most moving of the performances as she tells the story of hesitation to contact the one you love on their birthday, when they don’t love you. Declaring the man in the song the only man she can love and wrapping up the song in tears. My cold heart literally broke for her.

My favorite song of the night would most likely be ‘I Wanna Look Like A Tiger’ performed in the tiger hat/rug/god knows as pictured above.

The audience interaction was unlike any gig I’d been to before, Soko literally conversing with the crowd and speaking openly to the light and sound guys throughout the performance. After continuously requesting not so much light and eventually no light to which they ignored she finally demanded the light guy “go to the bar and have a beer” to ease the heat on stage. Unfortunately the lights were turned up yet again and inspired my favourite Soko quote of the night “It’s not that I don’t like lights, I just don’t like lights”.

The lights were as unruly as the many drunken clowns in the audience, most making me embarrassed to be Australian (you know the bogan who requests ‘Khe San’ at a French show… no joke.. someone actually asked Soko to play Cold Chisel!). The sound wasn’t much better with serious distortion marring the majority of the show.

After a while the songs start to melt into one another and all bled to be the same about dying alone, being alone and unrequited love, did I mention dying alone?

With no set list the show continued into it’s second hour which provided the crowd pleasing hit ‘I’ll Kill Her’ and my favourite ‘Wet Dreams’ which was performed with a kind overweight man from the audience who seemed quite pleased to stand next to the petite potty mouth as she sung about “bang bang bang in the back of your mothers car”.

I’ve walked out on very few shows in my life but after the French darling realized there was no curfew and could continue playing I wasn’t ready for more due to a painful pair of new shoes and some friendly wine and decided to hit the road with a few other punters.

It will definitely go down as one of my favourite shows ever intimately and I’d definitely see Soko again because the whole time you feel like you’re in this conversation with her about her bizarre life and it’s probably the most enchanting thing.