NOTE: All photos are copyright of Howard Shiau Photography 2025
Many Americans are not yet familiar with Claire Pommet (aka Pomme), a French folk singer/songwriter/actress who has already released four studio albums and won the award for 2021’s Female Artist of the Year at the Victoires de la Musique (French Grammy Awards). Her 2022 duet with Aurora, “Everything Matters”, brought her a new army of fans and she toured in North America in 2023 in support of her third studio album “Consolation”. Being the prolific artist that she is, she released her fourth record “Saisons” this year in two parts “Autumn/Winter” and “Spring/Summer”, a kind of folk opera. The gay singer is very supportive of LGBTQ issues, the environment, and mental health, all of which are brought forth in her lyrics. The mood and visuals of her videos are also quite expressive and haunting, and sometimes a bit disturbing. But this is creativity at its finest.
In support of her latest album, Pomme embarked on a brief tour of North America starting with Québec on June 9th and the following night at the Phoenix Concert Theatre on June 10th. The French-speaking contingency of fans were already evident in the line outside the venue before the show, with some traveling to Toronto and extremely excited for the show.
Opening for Pomme on this stop was Montreal based singer songwriter Laraw (aka Lara Rawadi), who released her debut album “Quarter Century Crisis” just a month ago. While a bit under the weather, Laraw did not disappoint. Accompanied by guitarist Alex Ravvin, her lovely voice and adorable on-stage personality garnered her some new fans. There were a couple of times early in her set where you can tell she wasn’t feeling 100% but she powered through and she sounded great for the remainder. The occasional interactions between Laraw and Ravvin were cute: a smile here, a smirk there, a knowing glance. There was also one time when she sustained a high note, eliciting some screams of encouragement from the crowd. She looked over with a side smile as if to say “ain’t nothing but a thing”. See gallery of Laraw here.
The first thing that happened when Pomme took the stage was all the yelling in French from her fans. She made a joke about how she had been practicing her English for the tour and that perhaps it wasn’t necessary with all the French speakers in the crowd. She kicked off her set with “_jun perseides”. Since she wasn’t performing with a full backing band, seeing and listening to Pomme perform with just her vocals and whatever instrument she happened to be playing for each song, it felt like a very intimate show. While I knew that Pomme was a wonderful singer, I didn’t know that she was so funny! She joked that all her songs were about death (no, we know they’re not) and, to many non-French speakers in the audience, it could have been true! Her non-stop banter in-between songs was perfect, making you feel like we were all in a cafe in France while she played to us.
Before “Very Bad”, she explained the lyrics and how we should all think about that toxic relationship we’ve been in and to give a big middle finger to that person, but maybe a behind the back middle finger if we’re shy. But if you think you’ve never been in a toxic relationship, you were probably the toxic person. Very funny!! I think. Then she took a disposable camera and pass it around the crowd. I’m not quite sure what happened to that camera!
The setlist comprised of mostly songs from earlier in her career. Oddly enough, Pomme only performed that one first song from “Saisons”. I do wish she had sung “_mar le temps des fleurs”, probably my favorite track off the album. It would be amazing if she would someday do a full production of “Saisons”, with the stage set up to mimic the life, death and rebirth of the seasons. Pomme displays her limitless creativity in ‘b.”, the first song of the encore, which she wrote as a “postcard” to one of her favorite artists, now deceased. The “postcard” is what she would like to say to that artist but that’s not the creative part. Using and omnichord, an unusual instrument that she plays (as well as the autoharp), she uses Autotune to not make her voice sound digital like many artists do, but to lower the tone as if to mimic the voice of that artist. It was wonderful. After the two songs of the encore, the crowd kept cheering so loud that Pomme came out for one last song, “Je said pas danser”. She even moved her chair to the front of the stage and performed completely acoustic with no amps or speakers. The venue was completely still except for the low hum of those in the crowd singing along. What an amazing way to close out the show!!
For those who don’t know about, live too far away, or are just not coming to see her shows, you are really missing out on this extremely talented artist. Pomme is an incredible performer and you should catch her when you are able. In the meantime, I will have “Saisons” on repeat for quite awhile.
Click on photos to enlarge
Half of the pictures isn’t pomme. What is this??
The first set of pictures was the opener for the show Laraw