Share how you became an Avril fan!

Agree with jenda, I'll post mine later when I have more time as well. I loved reading your story and especially the concert experience. I'll probably also post my first concert experience as well.

I was about 5/6 I think, watching Complicated and later Sk8er Boi on a kids show called 'POP' where they play music videos. I wasn't the biggest fan of Complicated but I liked it, but loved Sk8er Boi. My dad had heard her a lot on the radio so bought me Let Go and got fed up of me playing it in the car over and over whenever we went out. Then my dad recorded her live in Buffalo on Sky for me to watch (again over and over haha).

With UMS, my (then) step mum made a comment of 'you can't be such a big fan, you don't even know she's got a new album out', but by this point I'd be 7/8, and had no idea that I could find out this information on the internet haha. So I googled the lyrics of the songs and just read them until my dad had the chance to buy her CD at the weekend. Absolutely loved it, and I had a horrible time with my step mum, and every evening I'd hide in my room and listen to UMS on repeat and block the world out. I remember being so upset that dad thought I was too young to go and see her on this tour.

This time I knew she had an album coming out, and evil step mum had gone, and I remember listening to Girlfriend and being completely baffled, and worried about the upcoming album. It grew on me and I ended up really liking it. I had also started to learn to play guitar and dad was using the fact that Avril played guitar to motivate me to practice more and taught me a few of her songs (he's an amazing guitarist and wants me to learn so tried all sorts of ways to motivate me - this one finally worked). Then my grandad bought me tickets to go and see her and he took me. And it was amazing, my grandma waited outside in the car park for the whole gig reading so she could drive us home haha, bless her.

I was properly following her by now and was getting impatient with the delays. I was a little disappointed with GL at first (and WTH when she did the New Years show in America - apologies for not knowing the name, I know it's big!), but I liked it and it grew on me. Bought tickets immediately when they went on sale, unfortunately the gig wasn't too amazing, but that was down to the crowd and not her. It was just completely dead. I still enjoyed it though

Lost interest after hearing a stream of AL, wasn't impressed with it. Kept looking out for UK tour dates but of course they didn't come. And then about a year after it was released I started to appreciate it and caught up on what I'd missed. And here I am.

No where near as interesting as the OP but here you are haha

I love reading everyone's stories about how they discovered Avril!

Here's mine and also my first concert experience with her:



Avril came out when I was about 8 years old, when Complicated was released. I remember hearing it in the car once and I absolutely loved it. My parents both thought it was annoying and I was sitting in the backseat thinking to myself "That was cool!" Haha I had no idea what the song was or who the artist was, I just knew I really liked the song. But I never heard it again for awhile after that. This was back in the day when Internet was still a relatively new thing, the best my family had at the time was a laptop with dial-up Internet, so I didn't really use it much. I had no idea how to find out information about Avril or her songs. Occasionally Nickelodeon would play the music video on TV during a commercial and I remember I taped it once because they would only play a short clip and then go back to the show. I think I hadn't made the connection that it was the same song I had heard months before on the radio. Then fast forward to October-ish I guess and the TV show All That.

There was this TV show on Nickelodeon that was sort of like Saturday Night Live for kids and they had musical guests at the end of every episode. I think this was their Halloween episode so it must have been around October 2002 this aired. I just happened to be taping this episode (and I still have it!) Avril was performing Complicated (and I guess also performed Sk8er Boi later but it was not aired), she was wearing a red, white, and blue striped shirt with camo pants and high tops. I just loved everything about that performance. Up until that time in my life, I mainly listened to compilation CDs other people got me like Now That's What I Call Music! and Radio Disney Jams and stuff, I didn't really own any proper CDs or watch proper performers on TV. I had just never seen anything like Avril before. It was like time stopped and my life changed forever in that moment. I was absolutely mesmerized, from the outfit to the song to the way she sang and performed, everything about it just grabbed me. I think I probably still hadn't made the connection it was the same song or same artist I had been looking at before though. Here's the performance that made me a fan:





So since I had it on tape, I kept rewinding it and watching it over and over again and tried memorizing the lyrics. My parents at some point saw I was interested and kept watching this over and over, and I guess they were happy that I was interested in a singer that wasn't like Britney Spears, so my dad did some research and found out who she was and that she had a CD out, so the next day or whatever he went out and bought Let Go for me. I was kind of a dumb kid back then, I didn't realize her CD would have other songs on it, I kept thinking it would just have Complicated so I was surprised and confused when I saw other songs listed on it. So I popped it into my CD player and looked through the booklet while I listened and from that day onwards, Avril Lavigne became my favorite artist of all time ever. I was OBSESSED with her back then, I thought she was so cool because she was 17 and I was only 9/10, so I thought she was so old and cool and of course I wanted to dress like her and be like her, I memorized all the lyrics to every song on LG and listened to it every day after school when I was in 4th and 5th grade. I remember once in school for a writing assignment we had to write an essay about a costume or how to dress like a certain character or person, so I wrote about how to dress like Avril Lavigne. One night I saw on the TV Guide that the ABC Family Anything But Ordinary documentary was going to be on that night but my mom said it was past my bedtime so she would tape it for me and then I could watch it when I came home from school and I was so excited! I still have that tape as well. Because I didn't have access to many magazines or Internet or things like that back then, I tried as hard as I could to find out everything about her. I would play the LG CD in my laptop so I could watch the extra footage and I remember thinking that "I Don't Give" was like a preview of her next album or something.

Fast forward to 2004 when UMS was released. I was at Target with my family and my parents were like "Look Andrea, Avril has a new album!" But for some reason I didn't want to buy it but I bought the Avril Live Acoustic EP because it had new songs on it and it was only $5. So that was how i listened to UMS for some time, just listening to those acoustic songs. Then in 2006 or 2007-ish I think I bought the UMS album in the summer and listened to it a lot during that time.

One day in 2007 my dad was watching the MTV Top 20 Countdown and he was like "Andrea, Avril Lavigne has a new music video!" which was Girlfriend of course and it was my first time hearing the song and seeing the video. I was very surprised and shocked. I was 14 when it came out. I couldn't believe my eyes, I actually thought to myself "What the heck happened to her?" I didn't even recognize her! I was very disappointed. I hadn't been following her at all at that time, so I had no clue about anything new she was doing. Fast forward to April the day that TBDT was released on iTunes. I was on iTunes and I saw it on the front page and I was like "Oh, I had no idea she had a new album out." I had totally forgotten I think about GF. So I sat there listening to the previews of the album and I just kept shaking my head, thinking "What happened to her? This isn't the real her, someone's making her do this" or something. I really didn't like the new direction or image she had, so for awhile I went through a phase where I didn't like her anymore. My dad even told me about when she was coming to my state for TBDTour and I said I didn't want to go "because she sucks now." Man, do I regret that!

So I went through my little phase where I only listened to her first 2 albums and I thought she had "changed" and blah blah blah. Then I think in August Girlfriend had started to grow on me, I must have heard it playing a lot on the radio or something. So I decided to buy it on iTunes and then eventually I decided I would give the album a chance. For my birthday my aunt took me shopping and I bought it from FYE. I took it home and listened to it and the first time I really hated it and regretted buying it, but I decided I would get the money's worth out of it and listen to it a few more times. And after the second or third listen, I really started to like it and appreciate what she was doing with it. And that sort of restored my fanship in her. Eventually I grew up and realized that people don't need to stay the same forever or that you can change the way you dress and stuff without changing as a person. I realized eventually she was still the same as she always had been, she just looked different and changed her sound.

In June 2009 I must have been googling all over the Internet to find out anything about new music or whatever. That was when I discovered Bandaids. So I found out that she had interviewed with Rolling Stone, saying her 4th album would be released later that year. For awhile I just lurked around BA and then in order to see photos I think you had to make an account so I did and didn't post for awhile. Then eventually I got up the courage to start posting and 6 years later, here I am! From there, BA helped me out a lot with keeping up with the latest news and following the release and promo of GL. The GL era was probably the era where I "rediscovered" her and kind of became a fan again and the GL era was the first album I followed the release of and the first album I experienced as it happened. At some point I probably went back and watched all her old interviews and music videos that I had missed back when I didn't follow her.

By the AL era I was very on board with BA and with being a fan and I followed everything from the early stages of the album all the way up to now. I got to see her live for the first time in this era. All my life I had always wanted my first concert to be Avril. She came to my state on TTSMU but I hadn't known about it at the time and heard a classmate talking about seeing her and I was so mad! She didn't come on Bonez and I already explained what happened with TBDTour. She didn't come on Black Star Tour so the AL Tour was my first chance in 12 years of being a fan to see her. And it just so happened to be the last show of the tour as well as the week of my 21st birthday! It was the best birthday present ever and seeing her live was the most fun I've ever had at anything in my entire life. It was so much fun singing along with all the songs and dancing to the music. She put on a great show, especially with being ill. I am glad I waited to see her and that I stuck to my wish of wanting my first concert to be Avril.

So that's basically my story.

My story isn't particularly interesting compared to other people's haha. Let Go was released when I was eight years old, and I remember hearing Complicated on the radio and on the music channels and I really liked it and always sang along when it came on but I wasn't necessarily a fan. In fact, the copy of Let Go that I had didn't even belong to me but belonged to my older brother who received it for his birthday. One of the days during the summer of 2002 I was bored and wanted to create a concert in my bedroom for all of my toys (I was only a kid haha) and I didn't own many CD's so I thought I would have a look through my brothers collection; but at the time he listened to quite a lot of metal and of course my toys weren't going to appreciate Slayer    so I chose the album that I recognised and thought I might like the best - which was Let Go. 

I remember playing it and just being totally blown away. I spent the entire day in my bedroom with the album on repeat. I thought she was amazing. I just thought that she was the coolest person ever and her songs were incredible. It was the first music that I ever listened to and had a connection with, even though I was too young to relate to many of the topics in the songs but I was a bit of a tomboy and it was great to have Avril to look up to. I was completely obsessed for years - my bedroom was wallpapered with posters of Avril and I even kept a scrapbook filled with pictures of Avril that I found in magazines. She was pretty much everything I wanted to be. This continued all the way through the UMS era too. 


I've seen Avril live three times in total - twice on the Bonez tour and once during The Best Damn Tour. Avril was my first ever concert and I remember just being so excited and I wouldn't shut up about it at school for weeks. She was absolutely incredible. 


When TBDT was released I was a little astonished - it just seemed so different to what I had expected to hear. I did like it, but not anywhere near as much as LG and UMS. I still loved Avril, but it was at this point that I kind of stopped being so obsessed. I don't know if it was just that the TBDT didn't suit my personality at the time because I was thirteen at this point and had gone through a pretty crappy situation a few months before the release that I was still struggling through and the music just didn't seem to fit. So as much as I still loved Avril, I started branching out into different music. I did, however, become really active on Crossbonez, the forum on the official website which was great because I met some really cool people and it was a good way to keep up with what Avril was doing even though she wasn't my main music priority anymore. 


There's not much else to say   I adored GL, but stopped being active on the forum because the official site went down for a while, but then I started posting on bandaids around 2011/2012. I still love listening to Avril because she reminds me of when I was a kid and somehow her music just never seems old to me. Although my music taste has changed quite a lot, her music has always remained constant and she is probably the only singer that I have ever followed so closely. 

It was in CT and I wasn't really close to her but I had orchestra seats so I at least was on the main level and not in the nosebleeds or anything. I have some video from the show if you're interested:





Chad showed up to sing LMG with her and she dedicated Hush Hush to BA!

Cool video Bogo. If I could figure out how to upload I would post the "wave" here.