Avril The Pop Queen Keeps Passion In Reserve

[Sharifa]

Title: Avril The Pop Queen Keeps Passion In Reserve

Author: Author Unknown

Publication: Source Unknown

Date: 10.06.2004





BRITTNEY may be better known and Christina considered a superior singer, but it is Avril Lavigne who is currently queen of the teen pop scene.

Since releasing her debut album Let Go two years ago, the tiny Canadian has won over girls not with gimmicks, but with catchy pop-rock songs, angsty lyrics and an image that could scarcely be less starry.

Lavigne may be a 20-year-old multimillionare - Let Go sold a wopping 14 million copies and it's follow-up this year Under My Skin should soon push her past the 20 MILLION[b] mark - but on the debut date of her first [b]UK tour, excitable female fans were confronted with a singer who looked, well, not unlike them-selves.

Barely 5ft (1.5m) tall, with long blonde hair, in next to no make-up and wearing black jeans and a black T-Shirt that definitly wern't desiner label, Lavigne didn't look old enough to sit her GCSE's, never mind hold a packed arena in the palm of her hand. Yet from the moment the show opened with My Happy Ending, she controlled a crownd made up mostly of females aged between 10 and 20 like a seasoned old pro. In fact, too much so for the first half an hour.

While fans screamed at her every move and punched their fists in the air, Lavigne breezed through the start of the set as though on autopilot.

Admittedly, looking a bit bored is part of her image and her four-piece, all male backing-band were decidedly average, but even when she dispensed with her guitar for Take Me Away and her best known song Sk8er Boi, and skipped from one side of the stage to the other, Lavigne lacked even an ounce of passion.

Thankfully, things picked up when the tempo went down for the ballet I'm With You. It was the first time that Lavigne proved that she could really belt out a tune. The Alanis-like Naked with another highlight, during which it became clear why Lavigne has connected with so many teenage girls. Her simple, slightly stroppy lyrics are all favourite themes: boys she has broken up with, adults who don't understand her, and waiting to be left alone.

"You guys are extraordinary" said Lavigne, a line she no doubt uses everynight, but at least seemed to mean. She dedicated Anything But Ordinary to the girls who held up cardboard cut-outs of her and began to hit the high notes as she had missed early on. By now, Lavigne -a small-town girl from a religious family who was signed to a record label at 16 - was pretty extraordinary herself. She played piano, albeit one-handed at times, for the lovely, midi-tempo new Together, then dismissed all but one of her band and sat on a stool for a striking sparse version of Tommorrow

The bad news was that, bare together, the best songs all came from Let Go, not least her debut hit Complicated, which fans went home humming.

Lavigne still rules for school-girls, but she had better pull her socks up with her song-writing if she wants to keep hold of her crown.