Avril Lavigne glams it up -- but not too much

When Avril Lavigne exploded onto the music scene with the 2002 CD "Let Go," she often was touted as the anti-Britney Spears/Christina Aguilera, with her punky brand of rock, her brassy attitude and a look that featured crew pants and ties.

But for her 2008 world tour, Lavigne has gone beyond the rock-show basics and added dancers and production numbers to her show, an element all too familiar to those who have seen a concert by -- you guessed it -- Spears, Aguilera or even the Spice Girls, Madonna or Beyonce Knowles.

Lavigne, though, is reassuring fans that she isn't trying to follow in the footsteps of those pop princesses. She visits the A.J. Palumbo Center, Uptown, on Tuesday.

"My songs aren't bubble-gum pop dance songs, and I don't have background dancers on every single song like them," Lavigne says in a recent teleconference interview with reporters. "I'm not wearing a headphone, (a) microphone on my head. It's a totally different thing.

"There's dancing on maybe like four songs, and it's not really much dancing," she explains. "It's very me, it's very kicking and punching and stomping and marching, stuff that I was always doing onstage, (on) songs like 'Girlfriend' and then the next song after it, 'I Can Do Better,' like boom, boom, the first two songs, and then (the dancers) are gone. And then it's me playing my guitar, me on the piano, me with my band the entire show, and then at the end, (the dancers) come in again, so it's not a lot."

So this native of Napanee, Ontario, isn't going Vegas on her fans. But she has ramped up her live show. In fact, she promises a show that's big in every way, with LED screens and plenty of visual pizazz.

A three-album repertoire won't hurt, either.

"Finally, I have enough songs that are singles that people know so I can put them in certain points that I want in the show," Lavigne says. "I can bring it up with (rocking) songs like 'Girlfriend' and 'Sk8er Boi,' open and close with those big songs, and bring out dancers. But I can also come down and come out on the piano with 'When You're Gone,' 'Alone' and 'By Myself.'"

Lavigne's current CD, "The Best Damn Thing," certainly will lend itself to the party-like vibe of her live show. In some ways, it feels more like a natural follow-up to "Let Go" than to her second CD, the 2004 release "Under My Skin."

On that second CD, Lavigne seemed in a hurry to grow up. She still had her rockers and ballads in the vein of "Complicated," her hit single from "Let Go." But the overall tone of "Under My Skin" was weightier and edgier.

"The Best Damn Thing," though, was all about a good time, says Lavigne, 22. In fact, it could be called Lavigne's arena-rock album, with anthems like "I Can Do Better," "Girlfriend" (a hit single) and "Hot" fueled by big guitars, big drums, big vocals and even bigger pop hooks. The perspective once again is decidedly youthful, a bit of a surprise after the more mature sound of "Under My Skin."

But Lavigne says "The Best Damn Thing" was exactly the kind of album she wanted to make.

"All I wanted to do was just write really fun songs that weren't serious," she says. "My previous record, 'Under My Skin,' was really dark and deep, and so I got that out."

Lavigne had reasons to be in a good mood by the time she turned her attention to "The Best Damn Thing" album. In 2006, she married Deryck Whibley, frontman of the rock band Sum 41.

Professionally, she continues to enjoy considerable popularity. "The Best Damn Thing" debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard magazine album chart and has sold about 1.5 million copies in the United States.