Ashlee Simpson had a tough year. She said so at least twice at her show on Friday at the Benedum Center. She sold 3 million albums, but she had a tough year.

Most of us remember her as the pop act who got caught lip-synching on "Saturday Night Live." Lip-synching is the dance pop equivalent of steroids and as such is not that big a deal for a pop act. The trouble is her Daddy manager positioned her, the "other sister," as a rock act. Although it was smart to contrast her newly dark Jan Brady with popular sister Jessica as Marcia, positioning Ashlee Simpson as a rock act was not. Unfortunately for Simpson, rock acts are still expected to have some integrity, especially live.

Still, it couldn't have been all that tough. How many struggling artists get to voice their solipsistic diary musings over a great big rock backdrop and connect to a great big audience? Make that a great big audience weaned on her very own reality show. She also thanked the audience a few times for "standing by her" through the tough year. "We got through it," she said, and they screamed in agreement. As I said, she connected with her audience.

Simpson brought her celebrity style teen angst to the stage at 9 p.m. for an hour set culled mostly of songs from her "Autobiography" album. Her five-piece band slammed the songs out, and Simpson sang and brayed them to a crowd that was with her all the way. In keeping with her theme, she performed in front of a huge high contrast portrait of her face.

She was a kinetic entertainer, spinning, dancing and interacting with her band. She opened with what appeared to be her mission statement, "Autobiography," and followed that with five or so more songs.

She then broke for an acoustic set that included the bittersweet "Love Makes the World Go Round."

This was followed by "Surrender," which was delivered with much ersatz anarchy, just like her T-shirt logo, as the band incorporated a verse of Hole's "Celebrity Skin" into the song's midsection.

A more suitable '80s medley followed with songs from Pretenders, Blondie and Madonna.

She closed with "La La" and encored with the biggie, "Pieces of Me." Once again the crowd screamed the lyrics over her vocal, making lip-synching a moot point.

The support acts came in two flavors, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. The Stones act, "Pepper's Ghost," is a Philadelphia band fronted by two brothers. They elicited their fair share of screams and even managed to shoehorn a drum solo into a 25-minute set.

The Beatles act, "Click Five" not only dressed in suits and had pretty harmonies to go with their shimmering yet vapid pop songs, they actually covered a song from the era they were invoking. Toward the end of their set they played a credible version of Tommy James' "I Think We're Alone Now."

In retrospect, maybe they were just covering Tiffany.