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Avril Lavigne + Town Hall Steps Entertainment Centre, Fri 8 April So. It's Friday night and I find myself head and shoulders above a sea of camera phones and green glow sticks watching a Canadian girl bounce around the stage. It's a little strange to compare the small-ish crowd at the Avril Lavigne concert to the last time I was at the Entertainment Centre (when Green Day packed out the place), but there was still a sizeable crowd squished at the front of the arena, and a great number of parental chaperones up in the seats. Sydney's Town Hall Steps were... okay. There were some moments of really excellent music (particularly the last song they played) but as bad as I feel for saying so, they let themselves down in so many other areas. The sound wasn't great, the songs were a little repetitive, there was a severe lack of energy from the rhythm section and bands should never stop mid-song to ask the crowd to "please mosh for this next bit." Ever. Okay, I'll come straight out and admit that part of me was attending the Avril Lavigne show to check her out; but I'll have you know I wasn't the only boy in the crowd with a weird grin on their face when she bounced out onto the stage so cut me some slack, okay? The other part of me was frankly curious to see her perform live. There's no denying a lot of gossip and rumour has plagued Lavigne's live reputation (need I point out her disgusting performance on Rove Live?) so I really wanted to hear with my own ears: can the girl sing live? Well yes, actually. Belting through song such as Losing Grip, Unwanted, Mobile and Sk8er Boi, Miss Lavigne sounded a hell of a lot better than people give her credit for. She was full of energy for the whole show and interacted with fans which of course made the throng of girls scream for more. Unfortunately, she didn't talk much at all between songs, just the usual "Hello Adelaide!" and "This song is called...". And the show was incredibly short: all over by half past ten! But the biggest cringe came with Lavigne's covers of Blur's Song #2 (during which Lavigne clumsily took to the drum kit) and her overly poppy, bouncy, happy, ironic rendition of Green Day's American Idiot. Hideous. All in all, quite the entertaining evening. Could've been so much more though...  |
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