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On Saturday British pop star Lily Allen played to a very sold out show in the First Avenue main room. The show itself was great, but for me, the events leading up to it almost dwarfed the concert.

As you may know, Lily Allen has been using Twitter to give away tickets to shows on her US tour. I was a bit late in requesting a spot on the list to review this sold out show and was basically out of luck. So I told the owner of this site that I would attempt to win tickets via the Twitter scavenger hunt. After all, I live downtown and I figured she wouldn’t stray too far from the venue.

At around 5:30 PM Lily started the hunt. My friends and I had just finished grilling up some Kramarczuk’s sausages and I took off on my bike – the first pair were at the sculpture garden. They were gone within 5 minutes (at which point I was only halfway there), but I hung around the Loring Park area for a few minutes hoping she’d stick around that same area. She didn’t, and the next giveaway was at Falafel King on Lake. I pretty much give up at that point and headed towards my place in the Mill District. After grabbing some beers at Sorella, I stopped at Gold Medal Park and decided to sit on a bench and read until the next clue came. After all, it’s a good area to put the tickets – the Mill District is home to some of Minneapolis’ finest landmarks and has a lot of history.

6:30 rolls around, I’m prettty sure I’m not going to the show and figure she probably just gave the last pair to some fans on the street or something. I get up to leave and a clue pops up on my phone, clearly indicating that the tickets are on top of the hill fifty feet in front of me. What luck! I bike up there and search around for five minutes, but there are no tickets to be found. I check Twitter and read the following: “I can see you on the hill I like the way you peddle, they’re down the hill upon an l. Now cycle to you’re medal.” So add that to my list of strange encounters: Lily Allen just tweeted about me. I headed down to the Gold Medal Park sign and found a van containing Allen & Co., who couldn’t contain their laughter as I searched for the tickets (an envelope containing two tickets and two backstage passes were taped to the back of the “L”). Thanks Lily!

I headed into the show two minutes before Lily Allen took the stage and missed all of opener Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head. Surprisingly, the crowd contained quite a few men, and not all of them were just at the show accompanying their girlfriends. Allen played nearly all of her new material, opening the set just before nine with “Everyone’s At It.” I’ve been enjoying the new stuff the more I listen to it, but I think her debut album easily goes in my top 5 best pop albums of the last decade, and that’s hard to compete with.

Allen took a cue from hip-hop artists and incorporated abbreviated versions of older songs (four in total, including the Kaiser Chiefs cover of “Oh My God”), many of which had been reworked. The band sounded extremely tight and Allen’s vocals were spot-on, though it was clear she was using a backing track for most of the show. Stage banter included ruminations of the reception of the song “him” in Salt Lake City, and a reference to rumors of her drunkenness at her Denver show (“no one told me about the altitude”). Cigarette and drink in hand, Allen encored with a re-worked, faster version of “Smile,” single “The Fear,” a quick vamp of the melody of Kid Cudi’s “Day & Night,” and finally a cover of Britney Spears’ “Womanizer.”

After the show, we went backstage and hung out with a thoroughly intoxicated, but extremely friendly Lily Allen and band. We discussed such topics as her Twitter feud with Perez Hilton and why dried fruits were on their tour rider. Allen remarked that she was really enjoying doing the ticket giveaways and loved connecting with fans on a more personal level. What Allen is doing for her fans is very cool, and I’m glad I got the chance to participate, it made for a great night.