No Doubt reunites at Coachella, brings fans back to the 90s with nostalgic, energetic set
It had been 3,130 days since No Doubt had played together, but on Saturday night in front of a huge crowd at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, it seemed like no time had passed.
Gwen Stefani, 54, and the guys — Tony Kanal, Adrian Young, Tom Dumont, Stephen Bradley and Garbial McNair — put on a show that could have been plucked out of someone's garage back in Anaheim in the late 1980s. The sound, the look, the vibe, it all felt familiar.
High-spirited, energetic and oozing SoCal, No Doubt took their die-hard fans back to the mid-1990s, playing all their biggest hits from their seminal album "Tragic Kingdom," some bangers from the early 2000s and a deep cut with the help of one of music's current biggest stars.
More: Coachella 2024: Here's the complete setlist from No Doubt's Weekend 1 set
Midway through the set, the crowd screeched as none other than Olivia Rodrigo hit the stage in an I Heart ND shirt. She joined Stefani for a back-and-forth rendition of the No Doubt song "Bathwater" about always choosing the wrong man.
Rodrigo only was on stage for that one song, and the rest of the night was a No Doubt hit parade. Not many bands can close with a trio of jams from the same album like "Just a Girl," "Don't Speak" and "Spiderwebs," but No Doubt can.
Stefani had fun with "Just a Girl" at one point asking for only the men in the crowd to sing it with her. The deep-voiced "I'm Just a Girl" that rumbled back at her could only make her smile. She then did a girls' only call and response and the overflowing Coachella Stage crowd roared back twice as loud with the classic lyrics that as Stefani said "are more relevant now than ever."
Her stage work can only be described as "aerobic" as she bounded around the main stage infrastructure all night, running and jumping on stages that were out among the crowd, climbing scaffolding to precarious heights and even literally doing push-ups before "Just a Girl."
When that raucous song ended, the stage went dark and Dumont strummed the first three notes of "Don't Speak" and the crowd knew things were about to get emotional — and they did. Stefani belted out her hauntingly beautiful song about her breakup with Kanal, while the two shared the stage together.
Then the energy was brought right back up to close with "Spiderwebs," probably the ska-punk band's signature jam.
Aside from the three closers, they also played "Different People," "Sunday Morning" and "Happy Now?" from their "Tragic Kingdom" album. And they squeezed a few other big hits into their 16-song set including "Hella Good" and "Hey Baby."
Before Saturday, the last time No Doubt performed together was Sept. 18, 2015 at the KaaBoo festival in Del Mar. Stefani, as we know, has had a bunch of success as a solo artist and has garnered new fans in recent years as one of the stars of the show "The Voice."
It's also the third time she's performed in the desert in recent years as she performed with hubby Blake Shelton at Acrisure Arena in March. In January of 2023 she was one of the yearly concerts at The American Express golf tournament.
But this was a "No Doubt" night not a "Gwen Stefani" night and as she and her five bandmates gathered arm-in-arm for one final bow at the end of the night, you could tell it was as meaningful to them as it was to the crowd.
Shad Powers is a columnist for The Desert Sun. Reach him at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: No Doubt reunites at Coachella, dazzles in first performance since 2018
