NEONE the Wonderer performs at SoundOn Sessions: “Nights like this are vital for artists”

At the inaugural SoundOn Sessions showcase at The Pioneer Club in St. Albans, up-and-coming UK artist NEONE The Wonderer delivered a showstopping performance and highlighted the vital importance of nights like these for the future of new music.

The SoundOn Sessions represent an exciting new partnership between SoundOn and Headliner Spaces, shining a spotlight on the very best in new musical talent at the iconic Pioneer Club in St. Albans.

As an all-in-one platform for global music distribution and TikTok music marketing, SoundOn enables creators to distribute their work on TikTok and all major streaming services, while maintaining full ownership and receiving artist-friendly royalties free from administration fees.

In addition, SoundOn provides artists with a variety of features to promote their latest releases with TikTok’s creator marketing, meaning they are able to significantly grow their reach to a wider audience. 

Headliner recently spoke to TikTok head of artist services UK, Nichal Sethi, about the full spectrum of benefits the SoundOn platform offers to artists. You can read the interview in full here.

Among the artists kicking off the first SoundOn Session was Wolverhampton-based NEONE the Wonderer. Part of the MOBO UnSung Class of 2023 – a relatively new talent contest driven by TikTok and SoundOn aimed at highlighting exciting new acts – his unique blend of styles and genres was one of many highlights on the night. From hip-hop and grime to jazz and reggae, his ability to shapeshift sonically in the blink of an eye proved just as potent onstage as it is on record.

“Evenings like [SoundOn Sessions] are so incredibly important for artists,” he told Headliner prior to his set. “Having these kinds of platforms to perform live are vital for artists, because they can be the thing that dictates their journey. They could be that key factor in what allows them to grow and evolve as an artist.

“Also, nights like this can inspire everyone. It can inspire everyone who gets to witness and experience it, whether you are an artist performing, an audience member, or another artist in the room being inspired by what you’re seeing. They’re just so important.”

Describing himself as a “rapper, producer, and singer”, NEONE has been on his musical journey from an incredibly young age. A prodigious and precocious talent, his skills as a musician and writer became clear very early on.

“My musical journey started from the age of about seven,” he recalls. “I was given a keyboard for Christmas and that was the only thing I was playing in my house. Music was such a passion. And I was also doing art so I’ve always been quite creative.

“I wrote my first lyric when I was 11,” he continues. “Me and my friend were sharing our lyrics, then at about 14 was when I first showed a bunch of people my lyrics and they just went crazy! That was when I thought maybe I was cut out to do this.

“Fast forward a bit more and I was making choices for university and I studied media, but all the time I was trying to learn how to perform, and here I am now!”

As his writing skills progressed, so too did his confidence on the stage.

“In terms of shows, I started out just doing youth clubs, going to different clubs on the bus and spitting bars,” he says. “During the uni years it was open mics where you get to come across different styles of music and meet different people.

“As for what gigs look like now, I’ve played a lot in the UK and I play a lot in Birmingham as it’s very near to my hometown of Wolverhampton, and next year I’ll be gigging abroad which is very exciting.”

In addition to the incredible performances on the opening SoundOn Session, another key component of the evening’s success was The Pioneer Club’s sound system, which is made up of eight JBL SRX910 line arrays, four SRX928S ground-stacked subs and four JBL PRX908 floor monitors.

Two PRX915 DJ monitors also feature at the venue, along with a Soundcraft Ui24 mixer.

Meanwhile, two JBL PRX912s are positioned on the VIP balcony as delays.

JBL’s presence at The Pioneer Club is not confined to the main performance space. It also reaches into its bar and mini performance area – The Suet Yard. Completely reimagined from its initial iteration as a communal canteen area, it is now a social, DJ and performance space that sits alongside the main venue area, complete with a bar powered by Signature Brew and a JBL-powered PA system that can accommodate everything from DJ sets and stripped back and acoustic sessions for up to 200 people.

The full PA system consists of a selection of speakers from JBL’s PRX Series, including PRX915XLF subwoofers, PRX908 and IRX108BT loudspeakers, as well as a Soundcraft Ui24R mixer.

Furthermore, a comprehensive Martin Lighting rig works to spotlight the artists and sets the mood on stage and throughout the venue, which includes compact beam moving heads, bright single-lens LED moving heads, bright single-lens LED PAR cans, bright single-lens colour LED PAR can light fixtures, ultra-bright quad LED blinder fixtures and a JEM ZR35 fog machine.

The next SoundOn Sessions event takes place on Thursday, November 16th at The Pioneer Club. Also in partnership with MOBO UnSung, it will feature a special headline performance from Wes Nelson. Tickets and details are available here.