Avril Lavigne, Simple Plan & Phem, Depot At The Castle, Cardiff Castle, 02.07.24
Nostalgia is a powerful thing, it takes you back to somewhere you have been in the last, a place, a feeling, a friend, family member. All of these things can be conjured up by a simple song.
It was nostalgia that filled Cardiff Castle as two of Canada's brightest pop punk acts brought a wave of pink, black and white checkerboard, fishnets and loose fitting ties to the grounds.
As American singer Phem (6) took to the stage. A self created artist she went from sleeping in her car to co-writing songs with Travis Barker, Machine Gun Kelly and Palaye Royale. All well and good but on the night her vocals were a little lost in the backing tapes as she had only one other musician on stage moving between guitar and drums but the rest of it was processed. Shame really but I'm sure Tik Tokers (the masses of kids) jumped on seeing Phem perform but for those of us in our 30's it was the next two acts who were the main draws.
First it was Simple Plan (7), who are real fun when they play live. Packing their set with hits such as Shut Up, Jump, Emo anthems such as Welcome To My Life and I'm Just A Kid (that song from Instagram) all of which whipped up the nostalgia and got the crowd singing. The between song banter was funny, the drummer crowd surfed and we all partied like it was 2002 as they pumped out upbeat pop punk with massive choruses. Simple Plan know how to win an audience over, they brought some sun to a dreary Cardiff with Summer Paradise, they played their Scooby Doo theme (best song of the night) and also did a medley of All Star/Mr Brightside which became a mass sing along. There was a lot of people in the audience who were there for Simple Plan only and they got a great show out of these Canadian veterans.
The headliner though has been trending the boards since she was 17, that was 22 years ago, playing Cardiff on her debut album tour and again in support of Simple Plan, Avril Lavigne (8) is now megastar, her albums have been staples of teenage girls playlists for years, especially my wife. So she was elated when the intro video building the anticipation for this "Greatest Hits" show and that drumbeat, "Hey, Hey, You, You" refrain of Girlfriend got the show going, a quick welcome and then into What The Hell and Complicated. You could feel the excitement as many who went through their adolescence to these songs embraced them with open arms and hard seltzers, every line sung back.
It's no wonder her set at Glastonbury only days before had a one in one out policy as the Castle was packed, very little room to move but a very jovial crowd, odd for someone who has been brought up in pits and beer swilling metal shows. I've never been into pop punk/emo, when that was all popular I was listening to classic rock dinosaurs from the 70's. I didn't know all the words to every song here, though I can name every member of Deep Purple, but I did find myself engrossed in the show, the staging and performance was great. Her band are tight as hell, her voice is damn good, a little augmented in parts with backing vocals and volume but damn good.
My Happy Ending led into the punky He Wasn't and then in bit of clever staging she Face Timed Simple Plan and brought them on for a version of their song Addicted where fans were taken out of audience and given skateboards decks, most too terrified to go near Avril or Pierre Bouvier, but the perma-smiles on their faces was a joy. It was all theatre but showed Lavigne's connection and idolisation from her fans. Obviously Sk8ter Boi ended the main set and then it was a costume change into a Celine Dion-like number and an encore of three ballads climaxing with When You're Gone and I'm With You.
So yes nostalgia is a very powerful thing and for one night a massive swathe of this audience were taken back to their formative/teenage years for an hour and a half.
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