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Page 1
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A tattooed, blinged-out Ashlee worries about offending PETA ...
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Page 2
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The singer talks about the 'SNL' snafu and the Orange Bowl boos ...
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Page 3
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Three guys from Jersey wear their hormones on their T-shirts ...
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Photo Gallery
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Ashlee Simpson: From lip-synch to live
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Opening night of Ashlee's Autobiography Tour
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Browse Bands by Name
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 Bands Main
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Twenty-year-old Matt Cuciniello from Bricktown, New Jersey, and his two buddies sport hand-printed T-shirts that say "You Want Pieces of Me?" on the back and "Wanna La La?" on the front. When asked why he loves Ashlee so much, Cuciniello says, "Because she makes pieces of me want to la la!"
But these hormonal dudes are an anomaly: The other 98 percent of the concertgoers are female and say they love Ashlee for reasons like "she's so unique compared to other female artists" and "she's great because she's so not like her sister" (thank you Micaela Rehak, 16, from Island Heights, New Jersey), and "she's got her own style — I like her originality" (Nicole Panuthos, 17, from Jackson, New Jersey).
Whether she's actually original or not — she has many critics who will argue she is anything but — what matters is that both Ashlee and her fans believe that she is, and that she always stays true to that original self.
"The image that you see of me is really who I am," Ashlee says. "Even when I'm alone, you know, in my bathroom with no cameras, whatever it may be, I am still the same person."
Many of the girls at the concert are wearing tan or pink Ugg boots with micro-mini pleated denim skirts. Hundreds wave the green glow sticks they bought for $5 off a heavily tattooed girl toting them around in a basket. Some are probably 10 or 11, wide-eyed, legs too long for their boyish torsos, teeth a little bit too big for their mouths; and some are 13 or 14, carrying Coach bags, wearing a lot of pearly lip gloss and revealing serious cleavage. Hundreds stomp around in Chuck Taylors.
As does Ashlee during her performance. She opens with "Autobiography" and slinks onstage in a knee-length black jacket embroidered with spangly silver and gold appliqués, pinstriped black jeans and a black and yellow T-shirt. She works the front of the stage, leaning over and belting the big notes into the mic (yes, she hits the big notes — and all the notes). By the second song, "Nothing New," Stephanie is sitting on the edge of the stage behind a black curtain, looking up at Ashlee attentively as if to see if her friend needs anything. Apparently all is good, because she's gone just as suddenly as she had appeared.
During the course of her set, Ashlee makes a point of returning to a spot at the foot of the stage where there's a gap between the monitors. Here, the fans can reach their hands up to their idol while screaming along with the lyrics. As the glow sticks whirl around like fireflies in the bleachers, as the moms in the crowd politely bop along, Ashlee bends over and reaches down, flashing her trademark big smile, and takes the girls' hands in hers — over and over and over again, to their complete, utter, tear-stained delight.
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Photo: Jason Campbell/ Getty Images/ MTV News
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