Avril Lavigne stood at center stage Tuesday night at the A.J. Palumbo Center in a black tank and black jeans, a pink streak running through bleached blond hair, and boasted, "I'm the best damn thing that your eyes have ever seen."

It's not my place to make that call, but let's just say that Deryck Whibley, her Sum 41 husband, should wake up every morning and thank whatever god he prays to.

Lavigne was back in Pittsburgh for the first time in five years looking every bit like the poster girl for pop-rock. On this tour critics have been ganging up on her, presumably because, as she broke six years ago, they're expecting "Exile on Main Street" or "Nevermind" by now. But the 23-year-old Canadian is still in the business of adorably cute and entirely innocuous teen-rock, and her 13-year-old fans are ecstatic to receive it.

Lavigne set the tone by belting out her bubbly new hit "Girlfriend" like she was the head cheerleader. That, along with "I Can Do Better" and "Complicated," were served up with a little bad-girl attitude brightened by lots of smiles and flips of her hair.

There were a handful of dancers on a few songs, but unlike the Britneys of the pop world, she doesn't need them and doesn't choreograph dances with them. Rather, Lavigne is a multidimensional musician -- of sorts. She wore a pink guitar for "My Happy Ending" and then, during the acoustic middle section, sat down at the piano to play the delicate lines on "When You're Gone." The crowd squealed at a close-up on the screen that showed her actually playing.

Ballads like "When You're Gone" and "Innocence" are a better showcase for her voice, which is thin and pretty but hardly a threat to, say, Sarah McLachlan or Alicia Keys.

After the acoustic interlude, Lavigne turned around and gushed, "There it is! My pink sparkly drum kit." It appeared at center stage, where she grabbed the sticks to beat out basic beats and sing "Runaway" and the Toni Basil hit "Mickey." The real drummer, who doesn't have to worry about his night job, didn't have to move a muscle on those.

In her third set of Abbey Dawn clothes (her new line), Lavigne rocked out the rest of the show with favorites like "He Wasn't" and "Sk8ter Boi." The energy level, from the star and her fans, rarely lagged during the 90 minutes of catchy and harmless bubblegum rock. We're not getting classic albums from Avril Lavigne, but she has no apologies to make.