taken from: Facebook

Win tickets to see No Doubt in Vegas! Don’t miss your chance to see No Doubt at The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas this Friday, August 7th. All you have to do is become a fan of The Joint’s Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/thejoint) by 12pm PST on Wednesday, August 5 and you could win a pair of tickets! Or purchase tickets online at the link below.

I finally got my review finished… sorry it took so long!!! Click on the photo below to read it (it has lots of pictures and some videos):

taken from: Time Out Chicago

Live review: No Doubt + Paramore + Bedouin Soundclash at First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre
Posted in Music by Raf Miastkowski on July 13th, 2009 at 4:21 pm

After all these years, why would the 39-year old Gwen Stefani choose to go back on tour with her old SoCal bandmates and ex-boyfriend? Considering she got married to Gavin Rossdale, had a pair of kids, launched a massively successful solo career, and cashed in on a couple of clothing lines, jumping around on stage and screaming “I’m just a girl!” at the top of her lungs just doesn’t seem to make much sense anymore. Perhaps Gwen simply misses strutting around as a rock goddess as opposed to pursuing the pop-star-turned-entrepreneur career track of someone like Diddy. After all, many people forget just how instrumental the strikingly spazzy songstress was in shattering the glass ceiling for female rockers in the 90’s. Why is it so hard to believe she wants to re-capture some of that old magic? No Doubt has said the new tour is about reconnecting with its audience and inspiring the band to write new material. Sure, there’s all that cheddar too, but maybe Gwen would prefer to recruit another generation of fans as a bona-fide rocker rather than a quirky pop diva. After experiencing the ska-pop group’s epic, indefatigable, nostalgia-fueled show Saturday night at Tinley Park’s First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre, that’s not such a hard pill to swallow.

Walking up to the stage as a quartet of silhouettes projected onto a massive white scrim, No Doubt showed early on that everything was going to be turned up to 11. As the white fabric dropped, it revealed a massive, spider-like walkway structure with Adrian Young’s drum kit resting in the middle. The band sported white wardrobes and matching blonde-mohawked haircuts, with Gwen rocking black boots, a tiny tank top, and a toned figure that rivaled G.I. Jane’s. The stage was so polished, so impressive, that the band’s previous Rock Steady tour looked like a county fair gig in comparison. Launching into “Spiderwebs,” No Doubt instantly riled up the noticeably older crowd and soon had the capacity crowd of 25,000 people jumping up and down to “Hella Good.” By the time “Underneath It All” finished up, Gwen was proclaiming that it was “The loudest show of the tour so far.” During “Ex-Girlfriend,” a retro-cool spy montage featuring the band appeared in the background, with the entire stage turning red as the songstress screamed “Why am I so Jealous!?”. Surprisingly, The Beacon Street Collection’s “Squeal” made an appearance, though it was truncated because Gwen admittedly forgot the lyrics. Before “New,” Stefani made sure to freshen up with a new outfit consisting of a sparkly checkerboard hot-pants dress and black tights. Undoubtedly, one of the highlights of the night was when Gwen got the entire lawn section going absolutely bonkers with concertgoers up front looking on in awe during the funky, trumpet-backed “Different People.” Of course, the obligatory push-up demonstration occurred before the set ended with “Just A Girl.” Gwen effortlessly pumped out ten reps before amping up the seething crowd to a memorably ear-splitting boy vs. girl shout-off.

For the encore, Gwen dressed down to more comfortable camo pants and a sparkly polo before picking up the action again with “Rock Steady.” Though I liked how the band decided to play their go-to power pop ballad “Don’t Speak” earlier on, I thought that opening the encore with “Rock Steady” didn’t sustain the frenzied energy of the crowd. Next came the band’s new cover of “Stand And Deliver,” which saw the entire band and a young boy from the crowd banging on drums at the front of the stage while Adrian pranced around the stage hilariously in a pink tutu. Hoping that the band would close out the evening with the barreling “Sunday Morning,” I was pleasantly surprised when they actually chose to do so. The crowd summoned whatever energy they had left to close out the night with a bang, and stuck around to applaud the band copiously as No Doubt lingered on stage waving to their fans. Sure, No Doubt chose to postpone developing new, mature material for this tour, instead wanting one more go-round with their old catalog of songs about breakups and youthful enthusiasm. Though at first glance it doesn’t seem like a winning formula, when it’s pulled off with this much shimmer and swagger it’s not to be missed.

Opening for No Doubt was a pair of compatible and competent bands. First up was Bedouin Soundclash, which skillfully performed crisp, uppity, reggae-influenced jams reminiscent of the Clash. This time around No Doubt didn’t pack quite as much dancehall ammunition, so Bedouin Soundclash’s reggae flavor and tiki lounge vibe was a welcome addition. Then came Paramore, a tight, energetic pop-punk group that features 20-year-old orange-haired banshee Hayden Williams. Though some of the band’s songs felt a little stagnant and manufactured, riot girl Williams showed some serious spunk while hopping around on stage just like Stefani did when she started out so many years ago. The band also exhibited some surprising showmanship, which was appreciated by the numerous fans cheering them on.

Tags: Chicago, Concert Reviews, No Doubt, Tour

taken from: Canada.com

Hayley talks about touring with No Doubt, fayleys and being the chick the media focuses on

No doubt about Paramore’s rise. -by Heath McCoy

When Tennessee pop-punks Paramore first joined No Doubt on that band’s comeback tour back in May, singer Hayley Williams remembers seeing a gang of young girls in the front row all doing their very best imitation, style- wise, of Gwen Stefani.

It was a scene that Williams, 20, could certainly understand.

Growing up, she was a big No Doubt fan who found herself in awe of the band’s dazzling, charismatic frontwoman.

“I look at Gwen Stefani and she’s barely even a real person she looks so amazing,” said Williams in a phone interview. “She’s an amazing woman to have done as much as she’s done and to be impacting so many people still . . . I really hope to follow a career path like that.”

Of those dedicated Stefani-ites, Williams couldn’t help but notice that “they didn’t really know who we were.”

But the Gwen-gang kept turning up at shows, Williams says, and after awhile she began to feel like they had also become Paramore fans.

Meanwhile, there’s been another group in those crowds that seems to be growing in number steadily and those young women have a different look.

Instead of Stefani’s platinum blond, they’re sporting bright orange locks in homage to Williams herself. It’s something she’s seen increasingly over the last year or so and she still doesn’t quite know what to make of it.

“It’s odd to look out there and see a bunch of Mini-Mes,” says Williams. “You’re wondering what possessed them to do such a thing . . . It sort of does a reverse psychology on you. You’d think you’d be like `Hey, all these people want to look like me. I feel pretty cool.’ But actually it makes you feel more self aware and I’m not really fond of that.”

“I wake up in the morning and sometimes I just want to wear a T-shirt and blue jeans and now I have to force myself to do that, because I can’t care what people think, you know? . . .

“It’s very hard to see why people would come to shows dressed like me when they could aspire to look like Gwen Stefani.”

As taken aback as she is though, Williams can’t help but feel like such a phenomenon is a sign of huge things to come for the band she joined in high school.

Indeed, Paramore’s last studio disc, 2007’s Riot!, has hit platinum sales of one million in the U.S. As for the group’s next record, Brand New Eyes, set for release in late September, it was produced by the highly sought after Rob Cavallo, whose studio credentials include Green Day, My Chemical Romance and Avril Lavigne.

With all of this, Williams can’t help but feel that Paramore is on the verge of a major breakthrough.

“I feel it’s the calm before the storm, I really do,” she says. “We’re so stoked. I can’t wait for everybody to hear (the new record).”

Part of Williams’ love for Brand New Eyes comes from her insistence that making the record “saved our band.”

She’s vague about the exact tensions that existed, but it was widely speculated when the band cancelled its European tour last year that Paramore was close to splitting up.

Many assumed that the root of the problem was that age-old malady of mostly male rock bands fronted by attractive females. We’ve seen it before from Blondie to No Doubt. The media shines the spotlight on the chick and the dudes get bent out of shape.

That certainly seemed like the issue when MTV.com quoted the band’s guitarist and Williams’ co-writer Josh Farro saying: “We are a team. We are a band. It’s not just Hayley – it’s not her band.”

Williams acknowledged as much.

“I got the most frustrated about it because I just wanted to be one of the dudes,” she says. “With people focusing on me, yeah, there’s times I shy away from it and I’m sure the guys don’t always love it. But we take it in stride. As long as people are listening to our music, that’s what we care about.”

As Williams’ sees it, the band’s real grief came from growing pains. “After being so close-knit for so long (and living) under a magnifying glass, we needed some room to spread out and learn who we all are individually. We didn’t have that room before and this record gave us that.”

Much of the credit for that goes to producer Cavallo, whose approach is described by Williams as “nurturing.”

“The best thing Rob did for us is to let us play and not really keep his thumb on us,” she says. “He never overstepped and tried to steer us in a direction we weren’t completely sold on . . . He let us try things. He knew it was crucial for us to figure out who we were . . . It gave us a chance to talk about the inner struggles we might have had and the problems between (us as) friends. Once that was laid on the table there was nothing but honesty . . . I feel like for the first time ever (on record) you can hear all five of us.”

One bond that exists between the members of Paramore which helped them to carry on is their shared Christian faith, something that comes through in songs such as Hallelujah, Miracle and Let The Flames Begin.

Williams says that at times, while rising up through the punk-pop ranks, the band did feel like they were “the minority” among their peers, which may have solidified their unity.

But she stresses that while Paramore takes pride in their faith they “don’t want to be pigeonholed as a Christian band.”

“Our music and our message is so much wider than being just for the Christian public,” Williams says. “We don’t want to preach . . . We just want to play our music. I’m not singing songs about God and my relationship with God. I’m singing about life.

“But (Christianity) is a part of us and it’s very real. If people want to know Paramore, that is a part of us.”

Calgary Herald

Canadian tour dates (With No Doubt):

July 13 – Winnipeg

July 15 – Calgary

July 16 – Edmonton

July 18 – Vancouver

Tags: Articles, Hayley Williams, No Doubt, Paramore, Tour

taken from: Review Chicago

No Doubt stands and delivers: Part I (Milwaukee)
July 6, 2009
Charlotte Mutesha | Review Chicago

“I want my ears to drip blood!” Gwen Stefani said to me last Thursday, after doing ten perfect pushups. So myself and about 23,000 other women screamed back at her, “I’M JUST A GIRL!” The Marcus Ampitheatre at the Summerfest grounds shook.

We clearly outnumbered the men in the crowd, probably by 20 to 1. When Gwen had told the Wisconsin boys to shout, “I’m just a girl,” they tried, but it was weak. Gwen paused and said, “That was a good try, but that was shit!” Like a mighty chorus, we sang the bridge and the rocking out continued.

The show opens with the epic intro music to Battlestar Galactica. A giant white sheet drops to the floor and four huge silhouettes of Tony, Gwen, Tom Adrian walk up, growing larger with each step. Gwen’s silhouette does a cute little dance, and the four stand together in all their reunited glory. She yells, the curtain drops, and the horn-laden introduction to “Spiderwebs” blares into your soul:

After a five-year hiatus, No Doubt has hit the road for a highly anticipated national tour. Gwen (vocals), Tom Dumont (guitar), Tony Kanal (bass), and Adrian Young (drums) are back with their touring partners and backup vocalists Steven Bradley (keys and trumpet) and Gabrial McNair (keys and trombone).

The iconic, Grammy-winning, two-decade-spanning band clearly still has “it,” giving the fans their classic, epically energetic live performance. Gwen, who is 39 and the mother of two young children (the youngest is 10 months), looks better than ever with her six-pack abs and the incredible ability to dance, run and jump around nonstop for two hours.

I want to be Gwen Stefani when I grow up. She’s my style muse, fashion twin, and favorite entrepreneur with her clothing labels and fragrances. As a young girl listening to her lyrics, she sang the words right out of my diary. She’s married to a hot guy, has two beautiful babies, and a rockin’ body to die for.

It’s hard for me to believe that No Doubt’s last full-length original album, Rock Steady, was released EIGHT years ago in 2001. I was in high school and didn’t even have my driver’s license at the time. Furthermore, I was a wee lass when Tragic Kingdom and Return of Saturn came into my regular rotation of CDs.

What truly astonishes me, though, is the impact that No Doubt’s music has had on my life, and the fact that it’s still so relevant and inspiring all these years later.

The proof of their timeless relevancy is in their dedicated fan base. It may have been nearly nine years since their last record, but No Doubt is packing arenas and ampitheatres to the brim–and the fans are eating it up.

The band gives the crowd what they want: wild, energetic dancing; genuine interaction with the audience; bright, colorful stage set design; creative and mesmerizing background video; funky, exciting costume changes. Gwen periodically pulls people onstage with her to take pictures and wish them happy birthday.

And for the fans (YOU know the kind) that prefer the Tragic Kingdom sound to the Rock Steady vibe, a lot of the ska-influenced songs from the earlier days make the setlist. On July 2 at their Milwaukee Summerfest stop, seven songs were from Tragic Kingdom, four songs were from Return of Saturn, and Rock Steady tracks appeared five times.

No Doubt does not currently have a new record to promote, but who wouldn’t love a greatest hits setlist with all the favorites that haven’t been performed in years? Gwen explained that this tour was being used as a springboard to inspire new music to be written.

“Honestly, it’s procrastination,” she told Billboard. “My plan was to get pregnant and write a record, but instead of writing, I just ate all the time…Writing is always really hard for me — I hate it and hate it and then I do it, and I’m happy it’s done. I was blocked and I needed to get inspired, and I thought playing live would get the creative juices flowing again.” I feel ya, homegirl. In order to write music, she plays music. For me, when I need the inspiration to write, I read books.
Despite the lack of a record, the band did, however, perform their two cover songs, “It’s My Life” (originally by Talk Talk) and their latest recording, “Stand and Deliver,” by Adam and the Ants.

The thing I love about No Doubt is the fact that they don’t have a SINGLE BAD SONG. They could literally play any song from any record, and it would still be dance party central singalong time, and the crowd would still know every word.

I saw Gwen on her solo Sweet Escape tour two summers ago, which was of course, energetic and entertaining, but to see No Doubt for the first time was a fantastic experience, hearing the songs I listened to as a teenager.

Complete Setlist from July 2 in Milwaukee:
Spiderwebs
Hella Good
Underneath it All
Excuse Me, Mr.
Ex-Girlfriend
End it on This
Simple Kind of Life
Bathwater
New
Hey Baby
Running
Different People
Don’t Speak
It’s My Life
Just a Girl
Rock Steady
Stand and Deliver
Sunday Morning

The Marcus Ampitheatre is a great venue for a live show—there’s really not a bad seat in the house. Even if you’re up on the lawn, the jumbotrons abound, the graphics screen behind the band is gigantic, and the sound is flawless.

I also will be attending the No Doubt concert on Saturday, July 11 at the First Midwest Bank Ampitheatre in Tinley Park, IL for a second dosage–and will be back with a Part II of my No Doubt summer tour review series, comparing and contrasting the two experiences.

Tickets are still available (some as inexpensive as $15!), so if you’re a longtime fan, I strongly suggest attending this one.

In my book, No Doubt isn’t the Artist of the Week or the Artist of the Month–they are the artist of my LIFE.

taken from: Ohio.com

Singer Gwen Stefani reunites pop band, although technically it never broke up

By Malcolm X Abram
Beacon Journal music writer

Old alt-rock bands don’t break up forever.

Sure, we may never see a reformed Husker Du or the Smiths grace the stages of Coachella Festival or All Tomorrow’s Parties where many defunct bands such as Faith No More, My Bloody Valentine and other beloved alternative/indie rock bands reform.

But if fans wait around long enough, one of those seminal bands from their salad days is likely to reunite to take a lucrative victory lap (see Pixies, the), or to see if the band members still hate each other more than they enjoy making music together (see Jesus & Mary Chain, the) or perhaps because their solo efforts didn’t quite perform up to snuff, commercially, (see Stapp, Scott; Bridge, Alter and Creed).

No Doubt, the Orange County quartet that rode a mix of ska, alt-rock, dancehall, reggae, pop and their lead singer Gwen Stefani’s cutesy voice and general fabulousness into an impressive decade-long run of multiplatinum success that included hits such as Just a Girl and Hey Baby, never actually broke up.

The group simply went on an extended hiatus (see Fugazi) in 2004 following the release of a single collection (also a standard sign of a band’s ending) that included its awful, but successful cover of Talk Talk’s It’s My Life, while Stefani did what everyone expected — she started a successful solo career.

Stefani was already well on her way to becoming a fashion icon in the eyes of many fans. The singer’s solo albums and tours not only established her as a solo artist but as another music/fashion mogul.

Her first solo album, the heavily ’80s dance and synthpop-influenced Love.Angel.Music.Baby, was a quintuple-platinum-selling success and helped launch Stefani’s successful L.A.M.B. fashion line. (It’s an acronym for the album title. That’s called synergy, folks.)

Love.Angel.Music.Baby included the No. 1 single Hollaback Girl, an answer song to Courtney Love, who referred to Stefani as a cheerleader.

Other hits on the album included What You Waiting For? and Rich Girl, based on the dancehall duo Louchie Lou & Michie One’s 1993 reworking of the classic Fiddler on the Roof tune, If I Were a Rich Man.

Stefani’s initial solo success, followed by an equally successful arena tour featuring the Harajuku Girls, her ever-present phalanx of hip, Asian dancers, fueled the assumption that No Doubt might not record again (see Sync,’N), despite No Doubt bassist and Stefani’s former lover Tony Kanal’s presence on a couple of the tracks.

Stefani’s second solo album, the equally stylized The Sweet Escape, was less beholden to the sounds of the ’80s, but was not received as well critically or commercially, though it still earned Stefani another platinum plaque.

Also during that time, Stefani, who has always been vocal about her desire to have a family, gave birth to two sons with her husband, Gavin Rossdale, who was the lead singer/guitarist of the rock band Bush.

Kingston James McGregor Rossdale was born in 2005 and Zuma Nesta Rock Rossdale was born in early 2008.

Meanwhile, the other band members, all of whom are 40 save Kanal who will turn 39 this year, were also getting on with their lives, though not quite in such a public manner.

Guitarist Tom Dumont produced singer/songwriter Matt Costas’ debut album, Songs We Sing, and expanded his family matching Stefani — dual baby boys with the birth of Ace Joseph Dumont and Rio Atticus Dumont, born in 2006 and 2008, respectively.

Drummer Adrian Young toured with reunited ’80s group Bow Wow Wow and appeared on albums by Unwritten Law and Scott Weiland, singer of the reunited Stone Temple Pilots.

Kanal worked with Stefani on several tracks from her solo albums and produced American reggae singer Elan Atias’ debut album. He also worked with Pink on her 2008 album Funhouse.

Though there were never any publicly aired problems within the group, as members’ lives grew outside of the band, the rumors and assumptions continued.

”Everybody’s making it like there’s all this tension, you know, like I stepped away from the band and now they’re jealous of me, and look, maybe there is a little bit of that,” Stefani told Elle Magazine earlier this year.

”I wasn’t even married,” Stefani said about the band’s last studio album, 2001’s Rock Steady. ”Now I’m a wife and a mother of two. It’s a really different role. I always referred to No Doubt as a marriage, because that’s what it’s like to be together for so long and go through what we’ve been through.

”I can’t really have that relationship with them anymore,” she continued. ”My priorities are always going to be my husband and my family now. That’s a huge, huge thing.”

Indeed, many bands that manage to stay together for years find that the lust for collective success that fueled members when they were young and hungry is replaced with the responsibilities of adulthood, parenthood and ”creative” freedom. But according to Dumont, it was Stefani who initiated the reunion.

”At first, there was a little bit of an unknown,” Dumont told the Fresno Bee in April. ”Like, have we grown apart? Are we going to get along?”

Apparently, the answer was yes.

”We’re kind of like siblings,” he said. ”That’s the way I look at it.

”We have that kind of bond and friendship. We’ve been through this incredible thing together, even though there are periods where I didn’t see Gwen for months on end, or might not have seen Tony for a month or so, we would hang out again, or we would go out to dinner or go to a bar, and it was just like brothers and sisters.”

The band’s original idea was to have an album ready to tour behind, but Stefani’s second pregnancy was not conducive to creativity.

”I don’t know how other women feel, but I lose connection with myself because my body becomes this other vessel for this other human, even after a few months, you don’t have your body back, you’re not yourself,” Stefani said to the Bee.

”I was feeling not very modern, not very creative,” she said.

So the band has hit the road in an effort to reacquaint itself with its fan base and to also get members on the same page.

Members say their creative process takes time. They are hoping to jump-start their creative juices by taking a portable studio on the road for the first time to do the basic work for what will hopefully be the band’s sixth album tentatively planned for a 2010 release.

Tags: Articles, No Doubt

taken from: Boston.com

(click on photo to go to gallery)

No Doubt hasn’t lost its bounce
By Sarah Rodman
Globe Staff / June 22, 2009

MANSFIELD – It’s been eight years since No Doubt’s last studio album. Since then lead singer Gwen Stefani has produced two successful solo albums and two kids. But evidence of either was scant during the band’s exuberant regrouping Saturday night at the Comcast Center.

It was as if the antic ska popsters had been cryogenically frozen in 2003 after the release of their greatest hits album and thawed just in time for the show.

The quartet, aided and abetted by endlessly energetic horn blowers-keyboardists-backing vocalists Stephen Bradley and Gabriel McNair, bounced, skipped, skanked, and pogoed through a delightfully high-octane, hit-rich 90 minutes.

Stefani was her typical tireless self, balancing her girlie lyrics and tough-chick rock-star cheek with veteran skill. No doubt many of the moms in the largely female crowd of 17,000 were more amazed at Stefani’s sculpted abs than perturbed that her solo material wasn’t included.

But there was honestly no room for “Hollaback Girl’’ as the live No Doubt jukebox kept issuing forth can’t-misses: the bubble-pop electricity of “Hella Good,’’ the ska stomp of “Bathwater,’’ the dancehall curves of “Hey Baby,’’ the caffeinated guitar riffs of “Just a Girl,’’ the lighter-beckoning break-up ballad “Don’t Speak.’’

The band frolicked on a stark white stage with an octopod-like riser hoisting drummer Adrian Young – resplendent in two-tone mohawk, black briefs, and checkered thigh-high hose and later, a tutu. They amped up the mood with stylish, colorful new videos to accompany the songs, including a spy motif for the dizzying “Ex-Girlfriend’’ and, appropriately, a futuristic cityscape for “New.’’

The night’s two sweetest moments came when vintage home video of the fresh-faced No Doubt-ers floated by during “Running’’ and when Stefani hauled a female fan from the pit onstage to show off her devotion in the way of elaborate band tattoos.

It would behoove the group to make a new record as soon as possible. They clearly still have the juice and if they wait much longer they could get trapped in turn-of-the-century amber, relegated to oldies status before their time.

Points to No Doubt for bringing along the outre and extremely limber Janelle Monae to spice up the beginning of the night. Monae, jitterbugging around the stage like a female André 3000 sporting a fluffy pompadour and Colonel Sanders tuxedo, was a sight to behold, but the sounds weren’t quite as beguiling as her industrial space funk was hampered by typical opening act sound issues.

If Monae’s act was treated like something to be withstood by most in the audience, middle act Paramore was embraced wholeheartedly. The chipper pop-rockers, led by spitfire Hayley Williams, buzzed genially and energetically through their stack of bouncy radio hits.

Tags: Boston, Concert Reviews, Live, Photos, Tour

taken from: Boston Herald

No Doubt delivers Hella Good show

By Lauren Carter / Review
Monday, June 22, 2009

You could say they left No Doubt about their live-performance prowess.

For just over 90 minutes at the Comcast Center in Mansfield Saturday night, lead singer Gwen Stefani and her larger-than-life band mates ignited the venue as if their multiyear hiatus from music never was.

The dynamic, uber-stylish Stefani, now a 39-year-old mom with her own clothing line, could have passed for a 23-year-old fitness instructor as she sprinted across the stage, danced, pranced – and leading into “Just a Girl” – launched into a push-up session, all without compromising her vocals.

The band, now at work on their next project, hasn’t released a studio album since 2001’s “Rock Steady,” but apparently it’s only a matter of getting back into the ska-pop groove rather than trying to find it, as the show was a marriage of superb audio and visual detail.

A futuristic white set matched the band’s white get-ups, including the midriff-baring tank top that served as a window to Stefani’s chiseled abs. Bassist Tony Kanal and guitarist Tom Dumont played subtle, faux-hawked counterpoint to Stefani’s punk-feminine style while drummer Adrian Young performed in knee socks and underwear, later appearing in a tutu.

Yes, the look is as much a part of No Doubt’s cheeky, carefree appeal as their sound.

From the feisty opener “Spiderwebs,” the band – which included dreadlocked horn and keyboard players Stephen Bradley and Gabriel McNair – never faltered while Stefani cooed and worked the stage.

On the sinewy bass of “Hella Good,” the frenetic “Ex-Girlfriend” and the rap-infused “Hey Baby,” Stefani was all boundless energy. On mellow tracks “Don’t Let It Go Away,” “Simple Kind of Life” and the reggae-laced “Underneath It All,” she scaled it back and let swagger take a backseat to singing.

Stefani has had a successful solo career while the band took a break, but none of her hits surfaced Saturday; it was all about bringing No Doubt in all its facets back to the masses, from monster smash “Don’t Speak” to the synth-heavy cover of Talk Talk’s “It’s My Life.”

Judging by the capacity crowd’s thunderous demand for an encore, which included “Rock Steady” and “Sunday Morning,” the masses have missed them.

Opening act Paramore is a band modeled after No Doubt: melodic, punk-infused power pop featuring a dynamic frontwoman in Hayley Williams and an all-male band. The fivesome delivered a brilliant set that included the buoyant “Where the Lines Overlap” and their track from the vampire flick “Twilight,” “Decode.”

Tags: Boston, Concert Reviews, Live, Tour

taken from: Buffalo News

No Doubt brings gimmick-free flair

DARIEN — When a band embarks on a major tour without a new album to shill, it tends to be a “classic” act, with hair that matches the color of those platinum albums they put out ever so long ago.

So there’s something refreshing about No Doubt’s decision to hit the road again this summer. The Anaheim quartet’s last album came out in 2001, but it’s still on top of its game. As the group tore through its back catalog with obvious relish Friday night at Darien Lake Performing Arts Center, the vibe was the opposite of an Eagles middle-aged money grab.

Sure, the dough doesn’t hurt — judging by the huge, cacophonous audience that took in this show, No Doubt’s drawing power hasn’t waned one iota — but this band played off each other so naturally, and so clearly enjoys being on stage together, no matter how successful their lead singer is on her own. Hell didn’t have to freeze over for this gig to happen.

The band, flanked by a pair of exuberant keyboardists/horn players, got things started with a fantastic rendition of “Spiderwebs,” a song that best represents the appeal of mid-’90s No Doubt. Taking a Ric Ocasek riff and fleshing it out with dance hall horns and some snarky lyrical hooks (e.g., “It’s all your fault/I screen my phone calls”), the song is 15 years old, yet sounded completely fresh.

In fact, very little of the band’s set felt nostalgic. The stage design had a little to do with it—the stark, shimmering white setup looked like some kind of futuristic moon station — but No Doubt’s still-significant coolness begins and ends with Gwen Stefani, who threw herself into these songs with her typical mix of energy and stylishness. Her voice honestly isn’t all that remarkable, and certainly not made for over-the-top junk like “Don’t Speak,” but boy can she bite off a line, like the cathartic “I’m so jealous!” in the tune “Ex-Girlfriend,” or the brilliant, tender metaphor that lies at the heart of the insanely catchy “Bathwater.”

With Stefani’s onstage horsepower leading the way, No Doubt did anything but mail this set in. Whether it was the snotty “Just a Girl,” the blurp-and-bleep funk of “Hey Baby” or the slow-burning reggae love song “Underneath It All,” they made it next to impossible not to get involved.

No Doubt never seemed like musical innovators to especially keep an eye on, but over the years, they’ve compiled a canon of boisterous, adventurous music that has a singular flair, and is completely free of gimmicks. They’re a pop group for sure, but they’ve dressed the hooks so well — in So-Cal ska, new wave, dance hall and just a drop of mall-punk — that they’re not only still catchy, but still relevant.

And as great as the headliner was on this night, they weren’t the best band on the bill. Janelle Monae, the first opening act, put on the kind of performance that is so unique, visceral and true that it’s awfully tough to put into words. Joined by an amazing three-piece band, the singer touched on thunderous, Outkast-like grooves, girl-group R&B and vocal jazz in her very brief set. Like James Brown fronting the JB’s, her elastic voice, nimble dance moves and unbelievable energy made for an artistic force that stops you in your tracks.

Tags: Buffalo, Concert Reviews

Check out their great review of the concert Everything In Time sent them to and the meet and greet info here!

Check out the pictures here:

Tags: Concert Reviews, DC, Jason Miles, Kelby Miles