Soft Play at the Octagon, Sheffield 2024

The name Soft Play is bordering on legendary status thanks to the duo’s thumping instalment at this year’s Tramlines Festival. They decided to make better on that effort by visiting Sheffield’s Octagon on Tuesday, flanked by Panic Shack.

Panic Shack

Panic Shack themselves were hot off a great summer season, playing twice at 2000 Trees and various other festival slots. The 5-piece are well at home with supporting big names in punk after also supporting Bob Vylan last year. The presentation is a hit with the northern crowd so there was 0 chance of anyone getting ‘The Ick’ from Panic Shack. Playing sole support to a band with as devout a following as Soft Play could be seen as quite a mountainous exchange for some bands. But Panic Shack are totally cool about it for their 30 minutes and in Sheffields eyes the set was a total treat. 

Soft Play

Now Soft play had some very big shoes to fail in terms of fellow bands that played the octagon. Huge sets in the last year alone have come from While She Sleeps and the Gaslight Anthem as well as Shikari, which is looming in the next month. From the second the lights went down there was an immediate star power, the duo came on stage and there’s an immediate rapture as they kicked things off with ‘All Things’ & ‘Mirror Muscles’. Isaac and Laurie have such a simple presentation that the beef in their music seems to hit everyone in the face just that little bit more. The crowd has so much energy and those who may have been a bit unjustly quiet for Panic Shack liven right up by the time ‘Act Violently’ rolls around, and have arms held high to crowd surf the duo during ‘Fuck The Hi-Hat’.

The night does have a few highs and lows peppered in. Just prior to the track ‘Sockets’ Isaac demands to know why they’ve just seen a member removed from the crowd by security, though at the end of the song it turns out that he in Laurie’s own words “was being a prick”. For the most part the Kentish duo, are just having a laugh while battering through their tracks, with particular standouts being just before ‘Worms on Tarmac’, where they express a specific need to know if we have any backflip kings in the house (there was), as well as just before Girlfight where they insist the pit needs to be spread to its biggest before “about seven seconds of absolutely murdering each other”. The set isn’t without its poignant moments though as the track immediately to follow that is the mandolin lead and brilliant ‘Everything and Nothing’ before they close out with the final four tracks of ‘One More Day Won’t Hurt’, ‘The Mushroom and the Swan’, ‘Beauty Quest’ and finally, of course, ‘The Hunter’. 

It would seem punks not dead, at least it’s definitely not in Sheffield.