Avril Lavigne & Simple Plan perform at All Your Friends Fest 2025

Written and Photographed by

After photographing my first festival only one month ago, I thought I had been well prepared for my next one. In one way, I was. In another way, I wasn’t. Having the honor to photograph a bigger festival with bigger headlining names was definitely the highlight of my life. Although the first day was cold and windy, the second day wasn’t any better, with temperatures as high as 27 degrees Celsius and the sun draining everyone’s energy. But for most fans, they didn’t let it stop them from having the best summer weekend at All Your Friends Festival.

Avril Lavigne, one of my absolute favourite artists growing up, performed as a headliner on the festival’s second and final day. Lavigne has made history by smashing records, selling close to 50 million albums worldwide, and has over 25 million monthly listeners on Spotify. Making her debut in the music industry when she was only 16 years old, her debut album Let Go (2002) is the best-selling album of the 21st century by a Canadian artist.

Lavigne opened her show with her hit song “Girlfriend,” a worldwide fan-favourite. The stage setup and light production were like nothing I’ve ever seen before. She had this huge digital heart and bones – her iconic logo – which started flashing photos of her and her album covers through the years. Keeping things upbeat and fun, she performed her second song, “What the Hell,” and had confetti and streamers shoot everywhere into the crowd. Taking it back to 2002, “Complicated,” another fan-favourite, had the crowd settle down a little bit as we all thought about the nostalgia from her very first album Let Go. Her stage presence was great as she was interacting with fans. Covering songs all throughout her career, she sang the Shania Twain cover “Man! I Feel Like A Woman,” and even invited Simple Plan back onto the stage to sing their newest single together, “Young & Dumb.”

Simple Plan performed just before Avril Lavigne on day two, opening their set with “I’d Do Anything.” Running out onto the stage with as much energy as kids on Christmas day, they were so excited to put on the best show for all their fans who showed up. Continuing the excitement and crowd energy, they sang “Shut Up!” and “Jump.” As their show went on, they performed a lot of their biggest hits, including “Welcome to My Life,” “What’s New Scooby Doo?,” ” “I’m Just a Kid,” and closed their set with “Perfect.”

Simple Plan is also releasing a documentary on Prime Video on July 8, 2025, called “Simple Plan: The Kids In The Crowd.”

This documentary is an unprecedented look into the band’s music journey, starting from their basement shows in Montreal, Canada, to becoming a successful band all around the world. It will show behind the scenes on how their biggest hits were created, such as “Welcome to My Life,” “I’d Do Anything,” and “Perfect.” It examines the band’s impact as being one of the most successful punk-rock bands, as they’re still selling out shows worldwide.

Simple Plan fans are going to experience some never-before seen archival footage, interviews with band members, and celebrated icons of the punk-rock community. Featuring Mark Hoppus (Blink-182), Avril Lavigne, Noodles (The Offspring), and more.

Watch the Trailer:

Walking around seeing all the vendors, poutine trucks, pierogi trucks, an ice cream stand, lemonade stand, flower tattoo stall, craft market, Pizza Pizza truck – it felt amazing to be back at a place where everyone comes together and creates lifelong memories for a weekend.

Taylor Acorn, from Pennsylvania, has always dreamed of a career in the music industry, and that’s just what she did. Taylor is an amazing performer and has so much enthusiasm and energy to share with everyone. Rocking out and performing some of her songs “Psycho,” “Coma,” “Burning House,” and “Shapeshifting” she got the crowd dancing, singing, and screaming along the entire time.

The Veronicas, a multi-Platinum Australian pop duo, were glowing on stage and having so much fun dancing around and getting fans dancing and singing with them, as they flew all the way here from Australia. Singing some of their biggest hits in their career – “Untouched,” “When It All Falls Apart” and “4ever.”

Rarity is a Canadian hardcore-punk band from Hamilton, Ontario, and started touring right out of high school. Singing their favourite songs – “Brain Dance,” “Stranger,” “Hollow” and “Orchid” – they were completely rocking out all over the stage. I had a small chat with the band after their set and it was fun learning all about them. Getting a little bit of the background on what inspired them to create their band: “We all met at going to shows in Hamilton, and it was kind of like, hey you sing, you play drums, you play guitar, and it just kind of happened organically. We all just wanted to start playing shows.”

Going onto talking about their latest album release, Lower Feeling, and wondering if it turned out to be an album they planned on making or something completely different. “The process was a lot of fun, Loeden is the main writer, we got an airbnb for the month with the boys, recorded locally and still be able to be near family. To be able to release an LP this day in age, it’s always a blast. Seeing that album come out – I still remember we got a physical record while we were still on tour with Trophy Oz. Unboxing it was amazing. We had the most material written for this record than any other record we’ve done.”

I also wanted to ask what they thought their favourite songs are from the last album. “’Who Gives a F***,‘ that’s not even a question. ‘Keep it to Yourself,’ and ‘Brain Dance’ too, I was really proud of ‘Brain Dance.‘”

Another serious question I had for them was if they were working on a new EP or album. “There might be something? There’s something happening, it’s not nothing. We are writing and recording stuff and I think we’re just going to release as we go and just see what it turns into.”

My final question for the boys was how it felt performing at All Your Friends Fest and what their reaction was when they got the news. “We got All Your Friends Fest like super last minute. Our label head Jake hooked us up with the festival. We didn’t really think we would get it, but we did, and then we had no expectations coming in today. We were like, let’s just see what happens and we’ll play as hard as we can and try to get the crowd into it. We didn’t know how many people were going to show up as we were opening the day and no other stages were going yet. It turned out awesome. Kids moved around and sang words and it was definitely better than we expected, for sure. It surpassed all our expectations.“