Avril Lavigne Vs Hope Of The States

Hope Of The States - London Barfly - Wed 26 March
Avril Lavigne - Brixton Academy - Thurs 27 March

Picking a victor in a musical face-off of qualities so defiantly opposite is no easy task. Hope Of The States make VF 'cum in its pants' whilst Avril Lavigne sends us into 'a violent sweat'. You see: Hope Of The States are going to be huge. Big, bold, and political, they make big swirling torrents of beautiful music. Avril meanwhile, is giving the pop world a bit of hope. Look past the end of your nose, and through your indie-snobbery, (ignoring the totally irrelevant arguments concerning 'how real' she is), and enjoy one of the best pop icons there is today.

To say that Hope Of The States and Avril Lavigne are on the same page is to slightly misjudge things. HOTS's debut release charted at 71 last week and MTV refused to play the video due to its political content. With 'Black Dollar Bills' however, we have the most astounding debut to appear by a British band in a very long time. One which has instantly established Hope Of The States as possibly the most important British group since Radiohead. Avril needless to say, suffers from few airplay problems. Every time that pout at the end of the 'Complicated' video comes on, she shifts another 100,000 albums. Current figures have just exceeded twelve million. That's 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0. Count those zeros!

Like the teenager's bank balance, Hope Of The States band members number 'quite a lot' as well. Well, eight in fact, including full time violinist Mike Sidell, and the two extra  Chichester boys that geek together the bands' surprisingly effective backing screen visuals. Naturally, Avril has a big fuck off Satan star, projections aplenty, stairs and a bunch of Beverly Hills glossed punk boys with cordless guitars playing as her band. Prancing around in her standard issue combat clobber, they've obviously not suffered from the 'one t-shirt per tour' syndrome that most touring acts go through, all neatly pressed and meticulously styled.

Avril, for the most part, is in fine voice, and despite her annoying obsession with standing stock straight with her arm by her side, she's looking pretty good too. Half the crowd want to be her - (the prepubescent females), and the rest wanna fuck her. (You, me, and the children's frustrated dads...) With all the bunny ears and glow sticks, it resembles an S Club Juniors concert without the seats. Avril seems to have cottoned on to this, and there's always the sneaking suspicion she'd like to do a bit of an Eminem and take a chainsaw to people. In fairness though, it's not that much younger a crowd than you'd get watching King Adora.