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Avril Lavigne at Glastonbury review – pop punk pioneer still gives potent teenage kicks
The Canadian singer plays to the biggest Other stage crowd of the weekend, all in thrall to an expertly written catalogue that has real strength and depth
Moreover, pop punk’s current practitioners have been more than happy to pay tribute to a woman they clearly consider to be the OG: Olivia Rodrigo covered Complicated when she played Glastonbury two years ago. “Here’s to never growing up,” Lavigne sings, as well she might: after briefly dabbling with a more mature sound – moody Christian rock – on 2019’s Head Above Water, she clearly realised which way the wind was blowing and leaned back into her original mall-rat teen-punk persona. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PAShe’s been critically mocked as cosplay punk and rounded-edge grunge, and the idea of Avril Lavigne being widely hailed as a major influence would have been a very peculiar notion to conjure with in 2004, which just goes to show how wrong you can be.
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