Mimi Webb – Powerstation: September 13, 2022

Mimi Webb delivers her New Zealand premier of ecstatic Millennial pop to her peer audience’s wild appreciation. It is also the final date on this tour so it was a party!

Amelia Webb grew up in Canterbury, attended Brighton Music College and speaks with a London accent. She bounces on stage, blonde locks and a figure-hugging electric-blue outfit and immediately projects a winning stage presence. All that and barely 22.
24/5 and Little Bit Louder, both from last year’s Seven Shades of Heartbreak album, begin the proceedings and the band blast off in great power pop fashion. Webb has a surprisingly powerful voice for such a diminutive package. She approaches the helium-laced vocal lift of a Cyndi Lauper, as well as having a little huskiness in the mix.
Halfway is a perfect example of that voice hitting peaks and raising the energy levels up to the high ceiling as she sings time to let go. Behind her the band cooks, laying out eminently danceable rhythm riffs and judicious hooks.
Dumb Love. A slower tempo and a masterclass of young pop angst and heartache. The dance grooves preceding, set you up for the emotional impact of this. You and I we get so high/ Kiss like heroin. The way she hits a peak on the high, and the lower register on the refrain We had that young love/ Dumb love is phrasing reminiscent of Lady Gaga.

Sam Fischer

Sam Fischer is from a town near Sydney, and he is correct when he writes that he sings surprisingly better than you would expect. He looks a little like George Michael. With his glasses he could be a young Morrissey, and he does have blue-eyed soul tenor similar to Paul Young.
He attended the legendary Berklee College of Music in Boston and studied classical violin and saxophone. Somewhere along the way he sang with a prize-winning acapella group and that is probably where his pop music career took off. Working in Los Angeles he lent his vocals to other artists.
What Other People Say is a song he recorded with Demi Lovato to some acclaim, and the audience sing along with Fischer.
A cover of Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody is a winner. A slightly slower tempo gives him the chance to make this a superb soulful outing, complete with some nice falsetto passages.
He follows that up with a song of his yet to be released which may be called Carry It Well. It’s a folk pop number and it works just as well as the Houston cover. It’s been a rough time/ Thought I’d be doing better by now. He tells us this one has been informed by the pandemic response and its difficult psychological toll. It could be equally Sydney or Los Angeles.
Sam closes with his most popular number This City. Perfect white soul pop. It’s all about smokescreens and cigarettes.

Mimi Webb

It would be no surprise to anyone who listens that Webb lists as big influences Amy Winehouse and Adele, and she covers the latter’s Someone Like You to stunning effect. There is soul in that energetic pop performance of hers.
Goodbye, House on Fire, the songs keep firing off with explosive drums providing the frontal assault.
That is Gene on keyboards, Jack on guitars and James on drums, introduced before the final classy pop banger Before I Go.
Mimi Webb encapsulates the spirit of great pop music which London is justifiably highly regarded for.

Rev Orange Peel

Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Chris Zwaagdyk:

Mimi Webb:

Sam Fischer: