Meeting With Avril On Her Birthday

[Open Your Eyes]

As many of you have heard, Sharifa (staticrebelle), Katie (ktg205), and I met with Avril yesterday, on her birthday. It was an experience of a lifetime, and I'm excited to tell you all about it! This is going to be long, so I hope you're able to read a lot. Let's start at the beginning. That's always a good place.

Avril's Birthday Gift
Ten days before Avril's birthday, I gave Sharifa a call to talk to her about a birthday gift for Avril. We all knew there was no way we could pull together a gift from all members of Bandaids, so I suggested putting together a small something from the staff. The idea I came up with was a scrapbook where each staff member could tell Avril what their favorite things about her are. This is the information each person's page had:

- Name
- Username
- User Title
- Picture
- Favorite Song
- Favorite Video
- Favorite Album
- Favorite Lyric
- Favorite Picture
- If I could get Avril anything for her birthday, it would be...

With such short notice, I had to pull this together fast, and I mean really fast. For the next five days, I had the staff members send in that information so I could compile it into a scrapbook. I worked from after school until two in the morning each day to make everything perfect. Each staff member has two pages. They're all themed to The Best Damn Thing. Here's what the scrapbook looks like:

Front Cover

Cover Page

First Page

Second Page

The second part of Avril's birthday gift was a framed poster of "The Top 10 Signs You're An Avril Fan". Staff members voted on their top ten favorites from the famous thread. The top ten were put on a poster and framed. It turned out to be very nice. Here's what it looks like:

Sharifa Holding the Poster

[Open Your Eyes]

Sum 41 Concert
As the week before Avril's birthday progressed, we became more and more worried about whether we'd actually be able to meet with Avril. It only made sense to us that she would spend her birthday with Deryck. When we found out she had her pre-birthday party on the 23rd, we had a feeling that she'd be here.

I met up with Katie and a couple of her friends at The Intersection in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Sharifa was running late because of a class, so she said she'd call me when she got to the venue. After Schoolyard Heroes, Montey Are I, and Amber Pacific played, I went to the doors to find Sharifa, who had just arrived.

Me and Sharifa hung out in the back of the crowd, cause there's no way we were getting back up in front of the stage. Sharifa, I must say, is the funniest concert buddy. She was having so much fun, but didn't show it like me. I was bouning off the walls the entire time. I had a voice last night, but today I have none at all, unless I whisper. Plus my legs kill from jumping. We both had a blast, and so did Katie and her friends in the front of the venue.

Throughout the show, Sharifa and I looked around for Avril. We didn't see her at all. We figured that if she was there, she'd be hidden behind a curtain, or in the back somewhere. We never found her, so we weren't sure if she was there.

The bouncers at the club kicked everybody out right after Sum 41 played Pain For Pleasure, their encore. They had the place cleared out within 5-10 minutes. It was kind of strange, but we found out why this happened later.

After the show, we got the Scrapbook and Poster from our cars and went by the Sum 41 tour buses to wait for a Nettwerk rep, a member from Sum 41, or Avril herself.

Here are some pictures taken by Katie at the Sum 41 Concert.

Deryck


Cone


Deryck and Tom


Cone


Deryck


Cone

[Open Your Eyes]

Finding Avril Frenzy
After the concert, we waited out by the Sum 41 tour buses. There were about 60 people waiting there to get things signed. The bouncers at the venue made everyone get off the property, and many people left. In the end, it was Myself, Sharifa, Katie, and 4 Sum 41 fans who were very nice.

Members from Schoolyard Heroes, Monty Are I, and Amber Pacific came and left the venue without being bothered, cause they're not overly famous. We anxiously waited for someone to come out.

Finally around midnight, Cone from Sum 41 came out to meet with the four people that waited for him. He talked to them for quite a bit. While they were chatting, Steve came out and came straight to us. We congratulated him on the great show and talked for a minute. He asked what our cool things we were holding were, and we explained that we're Staff Members from Avril Bandaids and would like to give this stuff to Avril. He told us that he hadn't seen Avril in a week and that he could maybe talk to Deryck or somebody to give it to her. Of course he was lying. He knew we knew he was lying too. The thing was that the guys weren't allowed to tell anybody that Avril was there. She obviously wanted her birthday to be private. The reason why we were kicked out of the venue so fast was so they could set up for Avril's birthday party. We thanked Steve for the help and he took off. He was such a nice and funny guy!

Apparantly Cone didn't get the memo about not telling people that Avril was here. After he was finished talking to the people awaiting autographs and stuff, he came over to us and started talking to us. We congratulated him on his performance and chatted for a bit as well. I knew Sharifa was too nervous to ask him about Avril since Steve had just politely declined, so I took a shot at asking Cone. Cone is probably one of the nicest guys I've ever met. I explained our situation and that Sharifa and I are Administrators from Avril Bandaids and we wanted to give these gifts to her. He said something like "That's awesome. How bout I go and talk to them to see if we can set something up.". We were sort of taken back by this, because we didn't expect him to help us out.

I owe my life to Cone. He helped us out big time. Here are some pictures he took with us:

Cone and I


Cone and Sharifa


Cone and Katie

[Open Your Eyes]

Meeting With Avril
Cone went over to the Sum 41 tour bus and the door opened. I saw a blonde girl walk in to the bus, and I knew it was Avril. There were people blocking her, and we were far away, so Sharifa and Katie didn't see her. Cone and the Sum 41 Tour Manager exchanged words for a few minutes, and then we watched two people get off the bus.

Avril and Deryck approached us. They were holding hands and cuddling close together. We were a hundred feet away, and Avril waved to us as she came over. We introduced ourselves to both Avril and Deryck. Avril gave us all hugs, and I gave a pretty gangster handshake to Deryck. Avril asked how we were doing and we wished her a Happy Birthday.

I started telling Avril about the Scrapbook I put together for her from the Bandaids Staff. Her and Deryck listened to everything I had to say. I handed it to her, and she was in awe. She thanked us and told us how much she loves getting scrapbooks from us, adding that she couldn't wait to read the whole thing through on the bus. That made me really excited. For those of you who think Avril doesn't care to read your stuff, think again. She was so kind about it and thought it was great. Then we gave her the framed poster of the Top Ten Sings You're An Avril Lavigne Freak. She of course thought they were funny. Av really enjoyed getting these gifts from us. You could tell how grateful she was.

We ended up talking to Av and Deryck for 15 minutes. I found myself going on and on, because when I get going, I don't shut up. You may have noticed that in this thread. Avril loved hearing everything I had to say. Deryck seemed very interested in Avril Bandaids. He asked us how our site was run and how many staff members there are. Avril admitted that she sucks at computers but likes visiting.

Sharifa asked her about the Hot video and surprisingly, she told us about it! This is exclusive information, because she's never even mentioned it before. She told us that she approved the video earlier that day for release and that we'd be seeing it by early next week, I think. Avril said that it takes place on a Red Carpet and it's very old fashioned but still hip. I asked her if it would be anything like the Girlfriend video, and she said it'd not going to be as dancy as that. After that she showed us a tiny little dance move she does throughout the video. She does this thing where she raises her arm, like in the Girlfriend video when she says "damn precious". I don't really know how to explain it, but she showed us and let out a huge giggle.

I told her how much we were looking forward to her tour next year. This is also some exclusive information that she gave us. She confirmed that the tour would start at the end of February. Avril said that she's hiring a production manager for the tour, because it's going to be bigger and better than ever. The show is going to packed with plenty of dancing and a lot of changes. She assured us that it would be better than ever. I asked her if she had any ideas as to who might open for her. She told us that someone from Nettwerk showed her a band and she thought they were okay. She forgot the name of them and tried to ask Deryck, but he was busy at the time, so she said "It's somthing starting with boys or something like that". So I asked if it was Boys Like Girls and she said "Yeah that's it!". She also told us that on Wednesday, she was thinking about how cool it would be to bring Lil Mama on tour with her. She said she hasn't even mentioned that to anybody yet, so we were the first she told that to. She did say that Lil Mama doesn't have an album out yet, so she's not sure if it would work. This part of the conversation got me extremely excited for the tour.

I asked her the most random question. She was wearing this really awesome piece of jewelry. It was a gold necklace with a huge gold cassette tape at the end. I was thinking that she had worn it on TRL (I had mistaken it for another similar piece of jewelry she has), so I asked her if she did wear it then. She said, "No actually Deryck just got this necklace for me for my birthday. I saw it in Japan and really wanted to buy it, and he remembered so he bought it for me. He's the best." It was so cute how she described it. It shows us all just how much their relationship has blossomed.

She asked us where we were all from, and was really interested in us. I was amazed to see how she didn't treat us as regular old fans; she didn't treat us as staff from her unofficial fansite; and she didn't treat us as if she didn't care. She treated us as if we were her friends. She smiled the entire time and laughed and giggled. She made eye contact with whoever was talking, and listened to what they had to say. It was great to see how much she cared about us. She was talking to Sharifa about her education while Katie and I were talking to Deryck and getting pictures with him. At the end of the conversation, she remembered that Sharifa hadn't gotten a picture with Deryck yet, and asked Deryck to take a picture with her. It was really cute that she actually remembered that. It shows us all how much she cares.

If there's one thing I want you to take away from this experience you're reading, it would be to not judge Avril's personality before you've seen it. She cares deeply about her fans and the Bandaids community and made that perfectly clear to us. This was the best experience of my life, and it's something I won't soon forget. I hope you all have the chance to meet Avril someday. Even if you don't get the chance to hang out with her for fifteen minutes, atleast you'll get to see how wonderful of a person she truly is. If you have any questions, post them here or send me a PM. I might have left some stuff out, cause a lot happened. I hope you all can live vicariously through our experience.

Here are some pictures of us with Deryck:

Deryck and I

Deryck and Sharifa

Deryck and Katie

[Open Your Eyes]

Here are some pictures Avril took with us when she first came over. She was more than happy to take them. It was great!

Avril and I - I bent over to Avril's size, which she thought was pretty funny!

Avril and I

Avril and Sharifa

Avril and Katie

[Open Your Eyes]

These are pictures of us talking to Avril in the parking lot. Notice how much she cares listening to me talk. She's looking straight into my eyes. That was one of the best parts about it, for me.

Avril and I


Avril, Katie, and I


Avril, Sharifa, Katie, and I


Avril, Katie, and I

[catatoniaone]

COOL
stupid question but how tall are you ?
and where are you all from I thought Sharifa was from Canada did you all travel far ?