Dressed in a hot pink coat with pom pom sleeves, Lauran Hibberd skips onto the stage of what is officially a recording studio, on the fourth night of her first UK headlining tour and dives straight in with ‘Average Joe’ – a satisfying blast of pop punk from her debut album Garageband Superstar. Released just over a month ago, it is an album peppered with songs that recount tales of the twentysomething’s life seen thru a 90’s US pop punk lens.
As the guitar fuzz lingers from ‘How Am I Still Alive?’ a track that chucks some Wheatus into Sixpence None the Richer’s dainty ‘Kiss Me’ Hibberd and her other band members shout a defiant “Yeah!” into the microphones before crashing headlong into a banging ‘Get Some’. The crash, bang, wallop start results in the hot pink coat being wilfully despatched early on, revealing a white lacy prom style dress with a black t-shirt, a change in style from fun flamboyance to slacker chic.
“Dig a bit deeper Birmingham”, she urges beckoning everyone to crouch down and then jump up for the chorus of ‘Bleugh’. With the occasional breaks for guitar changes and the necessary pauses to wipe away the increasing layers of sweat (ranging from normal to Lee Evans levels on the Hibberd scale) there is plenty of opportunity to engage with the small crowd, which she does so with ease.
For ‘Hot Boys’, her duet with Viji, she is joined on stage by the girl herself after her support slot earlier. This gets the girls in the crowd jumping and hollering the chorus back to her in unison. ‘That Was A Joke’ keeps the energy levels sustained with it’s drum break, a rare moment of instrumental in a realm where raucous guitars and soaring choruses rule.
A room of hand-claps helps segue ‘I’m Insecure’ into older track ‘Call Shotgun’ before her Avril Lavigne anima is finally unleashed in ‘Charlie’s Car’ and everything makes perfect sense. The keyboard that has remained unused at the front of the stage throughout the set now has a function as Hibberd announces she “needs to get sad” for the fragile, down-tempo ‘Slimming Down’, a moment of reflection and heartbreak in a night of full throttle freedom.