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Not yet stunning, but she has time

By RICK GERSHMAN
Published August 22, 2005

TAMPA - One thousand.

Three hundred.

And seventy-seven.

Give it up for Felicia Willingham. That's a lot of aluminum cans to collect.

Her grandmother, Barbara Gill, gave Felicia, 15, a slightly higher goal to attain to enjoy the Avril Lavigne performance Saturday night at the Ford Amphitheatre. Actually, Gill set the bar at 1,500, but Felicia, a high school freshman from Lakeland, worked for 10 weeks to turn in the 1,377 aluminum cans she attained. She raided Dumpsters and trash cans, and bugged classmates to amass the pile. Granny gave in, buying her a ticket for Lavigne's show. Oh, with one caveat: She was coming along.

Really? Barbara Gill, 69, grandmother of nine, great-grandmother of twins Lacey and Conrad, is an Avril Lavigne fan?

"Most certainly I am," said Gill, standing hip to hip with Felicia and bumping butts with her throughout the second tune Lavigne performed, Shut Me Up .

Funny thing, because Lavigne herself remains a month shy of 20, and her appearance with opener Gavin DeGraw didn't exactly set attendance records at the Amphitheatre, attracting a modest crowd of slightly more than 7,000.

But Gill sees something in young Avril, something beyond the faux-punk, faux-bad girl, tough-talking, chain-smoking, distancing-herself-from-the-Hilary-Duffs-but-hell-when-it-comes-down-to-it-she's-a-Canadian-goofball public persona Lavigne can't seem to restrain herself from, and maybe she has a point. Lavigne performed Saturday backed by a rock band, and - rest assured, from the thick mix, the amped-up guitars and bass drum, and appreciated lack of prerecorded vocals - this was a 100 percent rock show.

Did it work as a rock show? Not exactly, but consider the reality: She's not yet 20. She has a powerful voice, and she co-writes a lot of her material, which in itself distances her from many of her presumed pop-rock peers. Other than being Canadian, which unfairly but indisputably places her in Terrance-and-Phillip land for most smart-aleck Americans, she's actually got a future.

Lavigne sounded good and looked good Saturday, lean and mean in a gray tank-top over a black undershirt and light blue jeans. Her dyed blond locks and understated makeup made for a marked improvement over the riot grrrl look in her videos; it seems Lavigne has figured out she had an appeal that bridges the tweener crowd.

Unfortunately, nothing from her show stood out, though it never disappointed. From Sk8r Boi to Complicated to Happy Ending , every tune was on point but perfunctory, never indicating Lavigne had anything superspecial to offer. That sounds like a criticism - and granted, it is - but again, she's young. She's talented. She's smart. And one thing that resonated Saturday is that Lavigne has a handle on where she is, where she came from and where she expects to be. If she isn't firing on all cylinders after two albums, so what? She's still ahead of the game, and odds are, with a few years and little seasoning, she likely will be owning this stage.

[Last modified August 22, 2005, 01:07:12]