It was a small, but enthusiastic crowd that greeted former teen queen Avril Lavigne and her Black Star Tour at the CN Centre Wednesday night.
Granted, Lavigne is no longer a teenager herself, but the devil-may-care attitude present in the majority of her songs appealed to the members of the young audience - many of whom may not have been alive when she hit the music scene a decade ago.
Opening acts Evan Taubenfeld, The Cab, a young five-piece from Las Vegas, and The New Cities, an electro-pop outfit from Montreal, did their job and got the crowd moving and screaming.
Lavigne then hit the stage with her pink and green streaked hair and ripped tee.
She sang the first couple of lines of the tour's (and her perfume's) namesake Black Star, before running backstage where she shouted her greetings and then returning with the upbeat single, What the Hell.
At the age of 27, Lavigne is already showing signs of slowing down, as she sauntered around the stage, at times paying more attention to her bandmates than her audience. After 10 years in the business, it seems the Napanee, Ont.-born singer isn't interested in doing more than the bare minimum to keep her paying fans interested - many of whom sporting backpacks, t-shirts and sweatbands bearing her name.
In short order, she ripped through a selection of old hits and newer singles like Sk8r Boi, He Wasn't and Don't Tell Me, trading her sparkly microphone for a checked guitar and again for a seat atop a piano.
But you could chalk the slightly sullen stage presence up to simply maintaining an image, as the few moments where Lavigne interacted with the crowd seemed to bring a genuine smile to the singer's face.
She also proved she's more than just the finely crafted image of punk princess, with a very capable voice carrying her through ballads such as Alice and When You're Gone.
Her hour-long set wrapped up with I'm With You before returning for an almost half-hour encore kicked off with a few acoustic tracks with opener Taubenfeld - her close friend and first guitarist with whom she spent the day at the local Walmart, according to Lavigne, adding they bought a Crock Pot. And according to Taubenfeld, Lavigne makes a mean split pea soup.
Then the band ended the show where Lavigne began: her debut single Complicated.
