Click-clacking onto the ACL Live stage in tall black heels, East London artist Sofia and the Antoinettes made her U.S. debut at Thursday’s Rolling Stone Future of Music Showcase. With blonde hair as big as Texas and a smile to match it, the moody alt-pop singer captivated the crowd with a thirty-minute, cinematic set.
Opening with “OVERWHELMING FEAR”, Sofia captured the attention of a largely unfamiliar audience and introduced herself as both a visionary and vocal powerhouse. Despite noted influences from various authors and artists, Sofia's onstage image conveyed a clear sense of self, establishing an identity profoundly her own.
Next were the songs “SPIRALLING,” “REVOLVER,” and “INTROSPECTION,” with “REVOLVER” being one of my favorites of the night. In it, Sofia reminisces about the experience of dedicating yourself to someone who hardly reciprocates, musing, “Reflecting off of you, a lighter shade of blue / And all I know to do is revolve around you.” Sofia’s poignant and poetic lyricism became evident here, earning the earnest nods and cheers of a packed house.
“Vespa” and “Matthew” came after, both vulnerable accounts of old relationships that she can now reflect upon clearly.
“I wrote (“Vespa”) for my 18-year-old self,” Sofia told the audience.
The song was, by far, the most raw, emotionally-charged performance of the night. In it, she alludes to a toxic relationship with a man who ended up being incredibly manipulative. “Did you pay off the director?” / “‘Cause it was all about you, the bits about me, too,” she sang.
Breaking from her established hits, Sofia performed an unreleased song called “I Don’t Know What I’m Doing (On Earth) as the seventh song of her set. The song explored taking accountability and finding your footing as a young person, and even elicited a chorus of crowd members who joined Sofia as she sang “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Her most popular track, “Hi My Love,” came second-to-last. An overdue message to an old lover, the song was one of the most lyrically rich performances of her set, with the hard-hitting line “Live your life as a poem, I’ll live mine as a poet,” concluding the post-breakup ballad.
To cap off a stellar and fan-forming set, Sofia closed with “WOMEN WHO LOVE TOO MUCH,” the titular track of her 2025 EP. As the name suggests, the song is an angsty, anthemic testament to both herself and other women who frequently find themselves in relationships with men who don’t love as hard as they do. Closing out her set with a bang, Sofia tenderly thanked the thunderous crowd as she made her way offstage. If her opening song was about the fear of being forgotten, this performance solidified that Sofia and the Antoinettes certainly won’t be.