Canadian pop regularly produces money-spinners who are particularly skilled in making a big noise without saying anything earth-shattering: step forward Bryan Adams, Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette. Avril Lavigne is currently trouncing them all. Delivering mainstream AOR with a punk-rock twist, in just a few months she has shifted a whopping 12m copies of her Let Go debut, and Lavigne-mania has taken over Manchester Apollo in various ages, sexes, scents and sizes. The punk-rock twist is a powerful selling point. But, unlike the proper punk gigs of old (or even the newer, snotty bands like Blink 182), this is a gig for the faint-hearted, with an air of incongruity typified by Lavigne herself. She wears camouflage trousers and menacing boots but sounds like the Cranberries.
The band's punk credentials are not in doubt: one of them used to be in a band called Closet Monster. But they have adapted effortlessly to playing stadiums. Lavigne merely has to punch the air to whip up the excitement, which is just as well because that is all she does, apart from clutching a guitar and strumming it occasionally.
Lavigne is not big on stagecraft, but she has at least two trump cards. Her voice is so powerful that you can hear it in the toilets. And, learning from punk, she has perfected the art of sounding disenchanted, delivering slick pop with potent dashes of nihilism. What that nihilism consists of, however, is unclear. She sings about being "weird" while reaching meekly for her water. A new, punkier song (and assuredly another hit) announces: "I don't give a shit..." But about what? Iraq? Her strict childhood? The fact that she does not look as good without eyeliner?
In a brisk hour, she only once breaks free from the persona of a carefully scripted rebel. A fan invited on stage is such a boisterous oaf that her pretend kick in the balls during the line "You look a fool to me" seems to carry genuine venom. That, if nothing else, suggests there may yet be more to come from pop-punk's pouting princess.
· At Brixton Academy, London SW9, from tonight until Thursday. Box office: 0870-771 2000.
