By India Yeoh | June 22, 2024
Last week, French folk-pop singer, Pomme, brought the crowd at Webster Hall to tears with her raw delivery of gorgeous melodies and ethereal vocals. The multi-instrumentalist performed completely alone, her command of six instruments lending a genuine and authentic feel to her straight-from-the-heart performance. Born and raised in France, Pomme’s songs are mostly in her native language, but she made sure to cater to the audience by speaking English between songs, and her interactions with the crowd were inviting, humorous, and welcoming. She even passed around a small disposable camera for audience members to take pictures of themselves, saying that she wanted to keep the memories of each individual show and every person in the crowd as best she could.
The night kicked off with opener Beccs, who delved into her original music straightaway and threw in a beautiful cover of Portishead’s “Glory Box” in the middle of her set. We could feel the reverberations from her voice as her tone traveled from floaty breaths to grounded growls.
When Pomme appeared onstage, she was met with thunderous applause. She launched into “jun perseides,” followed by “je sais pas danser,” while plucking her acoustic guitar as the audience sang every word back to her. She then switched out her guitar for a keyboard and jumped into two tribute songs, one to novelist Nelly Arcan and another to the Studio Ghibli film, “Spirited Away,” which combined her haunting vocals with sparse accompaniment to recreate the mysterious feel of the movie. In between songs, she gracefully accepted a bouquet of flowers from an audience member.
Pomme then covered “Coat of Many Colors” by Dolly Parton, explaining that Dolly Parton is a huge inspiration to her music. She had previously covered the song as a teenager just getting started in the music industry. For this cover, she played the autoharp, an instrument that gave new life to the song and made it her own.
Pomme prefaced her song “very bad” by telling the audience to use the chorus as a cathartic way to process toxic relationships; when she began, the entire crowd sang along passionately with her. After a few more songs, Pomme ended her set by fading out the keyboard she was playing and singing acapella. The room immediately erupted into cheers and shouts for an encore. Sure enough, Pomme returned to the stage beaming and played “B.” The song was a tribute to French singer, Barbara, and Pomme explained that she used the omnichord with an autotune effect on vocals to bring in elements to her music that Barbara did not get the chance to use. The final song of the encore, “grandiose,” had the entire crowd locked in on Pomme’s soft and intimate vocal performance.
As we exited Webster Hall, we all knew we had just experienced one of the most magical concerts of our lives. Pomme’s warm and lively stage presence, ethereal voice, and intimate connection with the audience created an experience unlike any other live show. Check out Pomme as she wraps up her tour around North America!
Connect with Pomme on Instagram, Spotify, TikTok and her website.
