“I didn’t think this was really going to happen, did you?” shouted Gwen Stefani midway via “Hella Good,” the opening music from No Doubt throughout their reunion set at Coachella 2024.
Indeed, it’s been 12 years because the SoCal quartet reunited for his or her final album “Push and Shove,” they usually final carried out collectively in 2015. (Stefani pointed this out quite a few occasions all through their Coachella set.) In the time since, Stefani has develop into one thing of a cult persona and evergreen TV presence as a decide on “The Voice,” releasing a handful of one-off singles as a reminder that, sure, she remains to be a singer before everything, even when her glory days as No Doubt’s frontwoman and a solo juggernaut within the 2000s are far behind her.
Perhaps, then, No Doubt’s reunion at Coachella served as a worthy reassurance — or a colourful, energetic assertion — that there are not any indicators of rust greater than 30 years after they debuted with their 1992 eponymous album. The band, consisting of Stefani, bassist Tony Kanal, guitarist Tom Dumont and drummer Adrian Young, performed an 80-minute set crammed with vigor and spark, as in the event that they have been nonetheless the spunky youngsters that have been proven in classic footage on the screens behind them.
It would have been a straightforward out for No Doubt to come back throughout as one of many de facto nostalgia acts of the weekend. And in some methods, on the lineup, they have been, gracing the identical fundamental stage that Sabrina Carpenter and Lil Uzi Vert had touched the day prior. But it’s a testomony to the chemistry they’ve had since their formation and subsequent mainstream ascent that they will nonetheless harness that very same vitality with conviction, particularly for a band whose members are all of their mid-50s.
Of course, it helps that Stefani is such a magnetic and charismatic frontwoman. Her tone was virtually solely excellent all through and he or she didn’t waste a single breath, even when she was ska dancing throughout from Kanal or bounding throughout the stage to awaken the group. But it was the best way the band members have been so in tune with each other, virtually a decade after placing the group on ice, that gave the songs renewed life, whether or not it was with a callback to their early days on “Total Hate ’95” or the fiery “Hella Good,” which opened the efficiency.
The group, which fashioned in Anaheim, California in 1986, embraced its ska aesthetic, proper right down to the dance strikes, horns and vogue selections. Plaid was splashed all over the place throughout the stage, from Stefani’s black-and-red boots to Young’s kilt. They paraded via hits, together with “Ex-Girlfriend,” “It’s My Life,” “Hey Baby” and “Don’t Speak,” peppering in a couple of deeper cuts like “Different People” and “Happy Now?” (It was curious, although, that they didn’t play a single music from “Push and Shove”).
Stefani herself appeared shocked that so many attendees determined to look at their set. After all, for the Gen-Zers on the competition grounds, No Doubt might be the band that their dad and mom grew up on. But No Doubt got here throughout as related and contemporary. Even when Olivia Rodrigo got here out to duet with the band midway via the set on “Bathwater,” it didn’t come throughout as a bid to win over the viewers; that half had already been achieved.
That’s seemingly as a result of No Doubt was simply having enjoyable they usually didn’t make it look like work. (Particularly when Stefani received on the bottom and did 10 push-ups earlier than “Just a Girl.”) “I was putting my makeup on and I was just thinking, is this actually happening right now?” she mentioned earlier than launching into the feminist anthem, which just lately had a resurgence on TikTok. “Because we’re absolutely in the future right now with you guys. and I want to do this next song with the band here, with No Doubt. We wrote this song back at the Beacon Street house in Anaheim, California, and I feel like… You tell me, but I feel like this song could possibly be more relevant now than it’s ever been. You tell me.”
No Doubt’s relevance has been dormant for a while, but it surely was exhausting to not really feel like this was a triumphant return to kind. It wouldn’t be stunning if their Coachella efficiency was a testing floor for an enormous tour to come back. If the roars from the group and the participation throughout the call-and-responses have been any indication, then they could simply have one other chapter to write down of their future.
No Doubt’s Coachella Setlist:
“Hella Good”
“Sunday Morning”
“Ex-Girlfriend”
“It’s My Life”
“Different People”
“Hey Baby”
“Total Hate ’95”
“Bathwater” with Olivia Rodrigo
“Simple Kind of Life”
“Underneath It All”
“Happy Now?”
“New”
“Just a Girl”
“Don’t Speak”
“Spiderwebs”