KINGSTON – THE JOURNEY
The next morning, Rachel and I hit the road at around 7 AM to make the 2 ½ drive to the K-ROCK Centre in Kingston. At around 9 AM we passed through Napanee and pulled off the high-way for what we thought would be a quick stop at the Tim Hortons.
And that’s when *it* happened: my steering wheel started getting stiff making it difficult to even turn the corner to get off the highway. My first thought was that the power steering was shot which would have *ahem* sucked real bad. I managed to pull the car into a parking spot and then I noticed that my battery light was on and Rachel calmly pointed out the fact that a billowing cloud of smoke was emerging from under my hood.
So I made the only logical move I could: Called my Daddy for help
. He figured out that it was a problem with my cooling system and told me to go get it looked at. Fortunately, the Tim Hortons we were at was right next to a Canadian Tire (a place that, among other things, does auto servicing) and seriously, I hope that every time my car breaks down it happens in the parking lot of a Canadian Tire
. They told me that I had blown a gasket on my water pump and it would take four hours and $450 to fix it. So we’re like “Okay fine, could be worse but we’ll still make it to Kingston for the show and probably still get front row.” And, you know, there are worse places for an Avril fan to be stuck than in Napanee
Rachel and I decided to walk around Napanee a bit to kill the time. We hit up the Napanee Mall which is TINY. Seriously, we went in and there were maybe five stores so I started walking down the main hallway and Rachel's like, “Sharifa, where are you going?” and I said, “Just to check out the rest of the mall,” and Rachel goes, “This IS the mall.” It was pretty awesome
Next we walked to Rexall where I grabbed a copy of Hello Canada with Avril on the cover and Rachel and I gave ourselves makeovers. Hilarity ensued. After that, we checked out the Giant Tiger where I was sorely disappointed by the over-saturation of Hannah Montana posters on their poster rack and the severe lack of any Avril posters.
We then made the walk into downtown Napanee and, after getting seriously off-course, happened upon Avril’s old high school
Napanee District Secondary School and her elementary school
Westdale. With our backpacks on and camera in hand I’m sure we looked like we were on some “Avril Fan” pilgrimage
. We eventually found our way back to the main street and made the obligatory stop at
La Pizzeria. The Kosmopolouses were super nice and we chatted with them about the Toronto show which they had attended and I told them all about Bandaids.
Then we made our way back to the Canadian Tire where I found out I needed ANOTHER part repaired on my car. I may or may not have started getting a tinge stressed out (Rachel claims I was “freaking out”… but she’s prone to exaggeration as Adam will attest to
). Finally, six hours and $650 later, we got my car back and made the rest of the drive to Kingston.
<o></o>
KINGSTON – THE SHOW
<o></o>
We managed to get front row dead centre for the show, but the venue was so much smaller than what she’s used to playing that I’m sure there wasn’t a bad seat in the house! This show had a bit of a different set-up as there was no VIP standing area at the front. As more people entered the venue, we could see the Lavigne clan filing into the first few rows of seating on the left.
Boys Like Girls took the stage around 7:20 PM and put on their best performance yet. They interacted with the audience way more and at one point the lead singer said, “This is our first trip to Kingston, and I have to say we’re in love.”
Then Avril came on at 8:30 PM. The show was EXCELLENT! Again, probably my favourite performance of this tour. You could tell that Avril was pumped for the show. She was all over the stage giving major love to the catwalk and she added in extra screams and harmonics throughout most of the performance. Even the dancers kicked it up a notch – the break dancing sequences were unbelievable!
At one point in the show she asked to get the lights up so she could see everyone in the crowd. She said, “Well it’s about time they built a venue so I could come and play here!” She mentioned that she had her mom, dad, sister, and brother in the audience. Then she said, “It’s nice to see some familiar faces in the audience” and looked over at me which was pretty gosh darn awesome. And then she pointed out some guy in the audience and was like “And this guy over here, Scotty, was my neighbour where I grew up.” Another highlight: as she was introducing Losing Grip she was like “I don’t even know what to say, I get so shy up here.” Waaaaaaay cute
After the show we went back to my car and as we were getting ready to jet a MASSIVE collective scream erupted back in the direction of the venue. We figured we’d go back over to see if Avril came out and say hi to her. There was a large crowd assembled at the fence so at first we couldn’t even see her, but she was dutifully going down the line and signing autographs for everyone. We tried to find a spot near the end of the line but the crowd was so large and they kept moving down that we eventually decided to step back from the fence and just watch. After a while she went back into the venue and we headed back to my car. Then, about five minutes later as we were driving past the venue to make the trek back to Toronto, we saw her out there AGAIN signing more autographs for some exceptionally happy fans
The drive to Toronto was fortunately uneventful, though we did finally get to make that stop at the Tim Horton’s in Napanee