Rich Little Skater Comes To London

You have to look twice at the young girls that form the bedraggled line that snakes round the entire Wembley Arena building, each one dressed in very baggy trousers or short skirt and fish net tights and T shirts that echo the punk age. They are mostly pale skinned girls with long straight hair of various colours, but mostly brown with blonde highlights. Each of them is modelled perfectly on their new idol. The hair straightening must have taken their mothers a very long time. It must have seemed even longer as their daughters probably spat out a few teenage angst statements at them every now and again.

But the girl they idolise and have come to see tonight in concert has now moved out of those teenage years and although she still only looks about fifteen, is probably a millionaire a few times over and has probably lost most of the rebellious feeling the girls are searching for in her songs. These girls that surround Wembley Arena are indeed rebels, at least they are in a-made-up-to-look- like-their-idol- kind of way. No one understands them. No one except the one they’ve come to see tonight and the millions of other young teens round the country who are at this moment driving their parents crazy. But of course Avril Lavigne understands them, it’s all in her lyrics, angrily belted out in her amazingly strong voice that comes out of her tiny frame.

You have to look twice at the girls dressed up to look much older than they are, with their sunless skin and their hair covering most of their faces, because you might believe for a second that Avril has decided to walk amongst her fans. She could do so without the slightest fuss.

The queue moves slowly, with the young girls and their parents freezing and chatting away in the night air, only a plastic plate of chips that costs two pounds to keep them warm. Gina, who is only nine years old and her Mother, Liza, have been queuing for twenty minutes and only now has Gina managed to persuade her Mother to buy her some chips.

‘It’s the only way to keep warm,’ Gina says to Liza, scoffing down the fat lumps of barely cooked potato. She looks enviously at people who have popped to Mcdonalds on the way. ‘People in macs, eating big Macs.’

Eventually the queue starts to pour into the doors of Wembley Arena where the security staff start checking tickets. One of the female staff is ignored by the young girls as they give their tickets to a younger male member of the staff. ‘I don’t mind standing here doing nothing.’ She proclaims to the entire queue.

On the wall as each of the crowd pass by is a large sign that tells everyone what equipment is not allowed into the building. This includes film cameras, glass bottles, and sound recording equipment. Much to everybody’s amusement, Gina points out the picture of the gun with a red line through it. It’s the sort of sign you expect to see in America, after all they are allowed to carry them in some states. Obviously, everyone one in the queue seems to agree, anyone carrying a gun, isn’t just going to hand it over.

Before entering the main building, the staffs starts removing the bottle tops from every body’s drinks, without any explanation. No one, not even the staff seem to have any answer as to why the bottle tops should be removed, except for ‘Security reasons’. Perhaps, someone suggests, Avril has a fear of bottle tops. Of course, plenty of drinks get spilled and there must be plenty of cleaners cursing the sticky floors of the stadium. A few men, who can hardly speak English, sell Coca Cola and Water or ice cream. The ice cream will set you back two pounds. Two pounds must have had a nice ring about it in some meeting. It makes you wonder who is racking in the money. Unlike Madonna, who charges nearly Eighty pounds for her tickets these days and makes no apologies about it, Avril’s tickets are pretty reasonable. Maybe that’s because she’s not that big a star yet. Maybe her small town Christian upbringing has taught her to be more charitable or maybe she’s rebelling against the men in suits.

By this time, the parents are being dragged to the orange plastic seats that line the Arena, while a mass of other fans have bought their tickets for the standing area. Sitting down on plastic seats seems the most appropriate and comfortable option, even those Avril will look even smaller from the stands.

Gina and Liza take their seats and stare across to the stage and realise how small she will look from there. But they point out that it’s about the atmosphere and knowing that you are in the same building as your rock God. Gina though, as she tells the story, has already met Avril Lavigne at Party in The Park. Her mother, Liza has a friend who works in showbiz and managed to get them backstage.

‘We were hanging round waiting for Avril, so we could get a photo with her.’ Gina recalls, trying to get her glo-stick glowing. ‘But she had this big woman body guard with short blond hair. She said to me and my friend “Avril isn’t ready to have photos taken, little girl. Run along with your mother”. Little Girl! She talked to us like we were four years old. But I got a photo with her. I wanted a friend to take it, but Avril reached her hand out with the camera and took it herself. She had to rush off.’

The man behind is kind enough to snap her glo-stick and it starts shinning bright green. They didn’t have blue or red left.

The young girls start screaming as the warm up band Simple Plan leap on to the stage with the energy only young teenagers have and begin rocking with their guitars. They are not unlike the other young bands suddenly appearing in British music like Busted or Mcfly. They sound pretty much the same. It’s hard to know where they hail from, but the lead singer sounds like he’s from Eastern Europe. He arranges the words in his sentences very strangely. The young Avril fans are certainly getting warmed up, practising their high pitched screams on these young adolescents. They admit that they are here to build up the atmosphere for Avril, but it doesn’t stop them giving the audience a damn good show.

The first night of her two Wembley gigs gets under way at nearly nine o’clock as she bursts onto the stage. Well, actually, her band burst onto stage, she merely appears, her long straight rock chick hair flying behind her, as she skips to her microphone, carrying her electric guitar. She expertly plays her instrument and belts out her first song. She wears black trousers and a black T-shirt, once again keeping her obvious sexual allure hidden away. It’s about the music after all. There are indeed, a few men over the age of thirty in the audience who seem to be unaccompanied. This could be worrying, but the teenage fans are too busy waving banners that say things like “we love you Avril” on them to notice.

Her voice does not falter, as she goes through her catalogue of songs from both of her albums, and neither does the rest of her talents. She sits down and plays the piano for a short set, then after a short break appears behind the drums as her band sings Blur’s Song 2.

It’s a real shame that there are no big screens to show her waving her fist in the air and stamping her foot as she leaps across the stage. She certainly is full of energy, but the people at the back of the arena cannot see her face, just her flowing locks.

She sings Naked, and tells the girls in the audience that it’s about be comfortable being yourself with that certain special someone. They scream their approval. It’s the same for her hit songs, Sk8er Boi and Complicated, which you have to really listen to as she has admitted she sometimes sings Constipated instead. Presumably she’s fed up with regurgitating her two hit songs already. So it seems she’s already rebelling against…well, herself. They call her stroppy. But, that could be an act or perhaps she once was, because you really can’t become successful without being a little stroppy. Just look at Elton John or Madonna or any other multi millionaire solo artist. They can afford to have the hump.

Her second album, Under My Skin, following on from Let Go, has shown more maturity as she has flexed her song writing and singing abilities even more. She obviously has strived to get away from her more bubble gum songs that kicked started her career and has chosen a few subjects close to her heart, like not jumping in bed with someone straight away in the song Don’t Tell Me. Very responsible, by any parent’s standards. It’s a far cry from Madonna rolling around a bed on stage, being pretend molested by two dancers. But Avril is only young yet. Let’s hope we don’t see her French kissing Madonna any time soon.

Well, the night continued with Lavigne singing Anything But Ordinary, dedicating it to the audience of young girls, Freak Out and My Happy Ending. Her voice is truly incredible. Unlike many stars, some of who have been accused of not singing live at all, she looses none of her strength, even when she skips about the stage, thrusting a fist in the air. Elton John’s recent attack on Madonna, could never be directed towards this little pop starlet, seeing that she matches him at his own game when she sits down at the piano.

While Avril entertained, it’s hard not to stare into the audience, your eyes being caught by the green and red and blue glowing lights being waved in the air in time with the music. Thousands of teenage girls scream out her lyrics- they have learned every word, while undoubtedly dancing round their bedrooms holding a hair brush to their mouths. Gina constantly waves her green glo-stick in the air, her eyes seeming to peer into the crowds of her fellow teenagers and not at the stage where her idol performs. Maybe it’s enough that they know she’s around and still singing for them, still writing everything they feel about life and growing up in this crazy world. Let’s hope they listen to her usually wise words.

The next day Liza says that Gina’s green glo- stick is still shinning brightly and she has not stopped waving it. The day after it has faded and remains a clear tube, good for not much at all. It’s easy to see that Avril Lavigne’s career won’t be so short lived and will shine on for many a year to come.