Hey, hey, you, you...

Rockin' out with everyone's favorite bubblegum punk princess



When someone says, "Hey! I've got free concert tickets! Who wants to go?!" Who's going to say no? Right? Right.


So last night, a good friend and myself headed out to the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota to check out the first US stop on who's "Best Damn Thing" world tour? Avril Lavigne's.


Just getting to the Target Center was a trip. We got halfway to the interstate and I realized I didn't have my ID to pick up the tickets at will call. So, we turned around I got that, and we were on our way. The two of us parked at the lightrail stop in Bloomington and caught a train into downtown Minneapolis, just a couple blocks away from our destination.


Now, we had missed the opening act (Boys Like Girls) but we were OK with that. The two of us weren't really big fans of that group anyway, so it wasn't a big deal. As soon as we stepped off the escalator and onto the floor we needed to be on and wild screams erupted from our left and a huge herd, that's right, herd, of girls in over-sized black and pink Avril shirts ran wildly out of the arena and down the hall. My life flashed before my eyes, I kid you not. (Later we would surmise that the opening band was making an appearance outside of the arena to sign autographs.)


After that unexpected rush we managed to guess what entrance we need to most effectively get to our seats. As we stepped fully into the arena, our senses were over-whelmed by the smell of girl. You know the smell I'm talking about, right? A not entirely unpleasant but confusing mixture of literally hundreds of different body sprays, lotions and perfumes filled the Target Center's air (with the occasional whiff of beer and fried mini-doughnuts, naturally). The arena was swarming with girls from ages that I approximated at around eight to middle-age (mostly parents, of course). Let's not omit the guys, now. There were a lot of dads and a lot of boyfriends at the concert as well, which was nice to see. Whether they were dragged there, voluntarily there, or otherwise, it was still nice to see representation from the opposite sex there as well to enjoy the show.


I've never seen so much black and pink in one place before. The shirts girls had purchased at the concert and pulled on over their other clothes were black and pink. The stage was black and pink. At one point, the mic stand was black and pink. Girls not wearing the concert shirts were wearing black and pink. When the show started, the main screen behind the band (which I'll get to eventually) was usually showing something that was colored in some combination of black and pink. It was crazy.


Due to mysterious technical difficulties, Avril didn't actually go on stage until around 9. We'd been sitting in our seats for almost an hour at this point waiting for her go on. There were half-hearted attempts at starting the wave and chanting Avril's name, but nothing caught on for more than a small section of a couple rows. Oh well. People watching and playing Tetris the good ol' cell phone was enough to pass the time.


As the lights dimmed, high-pitched screams filled the arena with such a din I could barely hear myself talk in my own head, let alone hear what the crazy guy sitting next to me was saying. The lights came up, the percussive intro to her hottest single since Sk8r Boi, Girlfriend started and the break dancers took the stage. A few minutes of this and our girl took the stage. I didn't think it was possible for the crowd to scream any louder, but they did.

There were three screens, one one each side of the main screen filming as Avril was performing and the main screen showed mostly graphics and occasional footage of her in music video-esque fashion in different outfits and poses or doing different things.

As a whole, the show was good. Avril wowed the audience with not only her voice, but her abilities playing guitar and piano on select songs in the program, but drums as well. I was most impressed with her singing and playing the drums, I would imagine that would be very difficult to do. She was engaging with the audience, had little completely choreographed dancing with her back-up dancers/singers, and put on a great high-energy, entertaining show.

Not everything was bubble gum and cotton candy, however. I wasn't terribly impressed with the four main dancers. There were many times their timing was off. I don't know if I'm just used to seeing footage from other pop/pop rock show or what, but I was expecting much a much higher level of abilities and choreography from those girls. The guys were awesome, however. I totally loved watching them break dance, and they were really, really good.

Despite my less than religious Avril following, I really had a good time as did the guy, that's right GUY, I took to the concert with me. I willingly admit that I do own two of the three Avril Cd's thanks to my punk-rocked-out-little-anti-authoritarian-hell-yeah-girl-power attitude I had as a high school student.

Whether or not she says this to every stop on her concert tour or not, she did say that we were her best audience yet. Cool nonetheless.