Avril Lavigne promises Wales her best gig ever

May 31 2008 by Karen Price, Western Mail

GRAMMY Award-nominee Avril Lavigne is promising fans that her show in Wales tonight will be one of her best yet.

The 23-year-old, whose hits include Girlfriend, says she is now an experienced enough performer to blow away the crowd when her European tour arrives in Cardiff.

“On my first tour, I’d only done the one album, so you do the hits off that, then you’re doing album tracks,” said the Canadian singer.

“But now that I’ve had three albums, I’ve got so many more hits I can do, so the show just seems more fun and exciting.”

She was married two years ago when she exchanged nose rings with Deryck Whibley, frontman with punk band Sum 41, who she says is her biggest critic.

“He’s a musician too so he comes along and he gives me notes, which I take notice of,” she says.

Lavigne, who released her debut album Let Go in 2002 when she was 17, is now writing songs for X Factor winner Leona Lewis, who sings R’n’B flavoured soul-pop.

“I love her. I think she’s amazing. I’ve even got a song I wrote on her album,” she said.

Lavigne herself is branching out in many different areas and while she continues to develop her movie career – she recently made a thriller called The Flock with Richard Gere and Claire Danes – she is also developing a clothing line.

“It’s cute stuff, the sort of stuff I wear, with stars and skulls and that on it,” she says.

Avril Lavigne is at Cardiff International Arena tonight