Glastonbury 2024: Watch Avril Lavigne close set with ‘Sk8er Boi’
Taking to The Other Stage at Glastonbury Festival on June 30th, Canadian pop-punk icon Avril Lavigne took fans back to the heady days of the early 2000s in a set that featured some of her best-loved hits, including the timeless closer ‘Sk8er Boi’. A significant moment for the musician, it was her first appearance at the Pilton celebration.
Since Lavigne burst onto the scene as a teenager in 2002 with her hit debut single ‘Complicated’ and its follow-up, her definitive anthem, ‘Sk8er Boi’, she has held iconic status. With her debut album from that year, Let Go, among the best-selling albums of the decade, putting an energetic and youthful spin on the skate punk culture of the Y2K period, she quickly asserted herself among the movers and shakers of the era.
She arrived two years later with her hotly anticipated sophomore effort, Under My Skin. It seamlessly built on the foundations of her debut, with it a darker, more mature effort, holding a distinctively post-grunge slant. Another hit record, and her first to top the Billboard 200, it is now considered alongside its predecessor to be a highlight of the era’s tidal wave of pop punk, featuring the likes of ‘Don’t Tell Me’ and ‘My Happy Ending’. Thanks to this duo of releases, Lavigne earned the title ‘Pop-Punk Queen’.
She then released her third album, The Best Damn Thing, in 2007, which supplied the ubiquitous heavily pop-leaning lead single, ‘Girlfriend’, which peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making it her most successful chart single to date. Although the record is noted for its more explicitly pop twists, the pop-punk frivolity and rock ballads that made her famous remained. The emotional aspect is typified by the follow-up single ‘When You’re Gone’, one of her best-loved efforts by fans.
Since then, amid a changing zeitgeist, Lavigne continued to be commercially successful with 2011’s Goodbye Lullaby and 2013’s self-titled. Her most recent two efforts are 2019’s Head Above Water and 2022’s Love Sux. The latter of these saw her return to the punk of her heyday, arriving amid the continued interest in the Y2K era from Millenials and Gen Z alike.
With immensely popular contemporary artists such as Billie Eilish, Yungblud, Charli XCX, Olivia Rodrigo, Pale Waves, and many more citing Lavigne as a significant influence, she made good on this status at Glastonbury. Delivering a career-spanning set brimming with classics, the vocalist performed to a large mass comprised of those seeking to relive their younger years and newer fans equally as deferential to her status as a female icon who bravely pushed back against a male-dominated industry when she first emerged.
While her entire performance was emphatic, the closing anthem ‘Sk8er Boi’ really got the enormous mass of revellers going. Lavigne loudly screamed to the audience before performing it: “Where all my skater boys at? Where are all my skater girls at?”
‘Sk8er Boi’ was written by the teenage Lavigne alongside the American-British songwriting team, the Matrix. Fusing elements of power pop with pop punk, its comedic lyrics, catchy riff, potent vocal melody, and resounding chorus echoed around the Other Stage, confirming that Lavigne’s status is indeed well-deserved. It perfectly topped off a performance featuring other classics, such as the opener ‘Girlfriend’, ‘What the Hell’ and ‘Complicated’.
SZA will headline Glastonbury later on Sunday. On the festival’s final day, Burna Boy, Shania Twain, The National, Justice, Romy, and Kim Gordon will perform across the Pilton site.
Watch Avril Lavigne performing ‘Sk8er Boi’ at Glastonbury Festival below.
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