No Doubt in Concert!

Melanie Chui

On May 16, 2009, I had the pleasure of attending the No Doubt reunion tour at the Air Canada Centre. For all you Gwen fans out there, this was a must see event!

Bedouin Soundclash opened to a half filled arena. The music was uplifting and some people got up to dance to their Caribbean sounding tunes. Next, Paramore came out and put on a high energy show. They were surely a crowd pleaser as the electronic rock/pop group jumped around on stage. At one point I even saw one of the guitarists do a back flip over the bass guitarist. That was definitely amusing.

No Doubt entered the stage with the entire sold out audience on their feet. They started with one of my all time favourites “Spiderwebs” off of their Tragic Kingdom album (1995). I couldn’t help but join the dancing. Gwen started the show in a crop top, and let me tell you how amazing it is to see a mother of 2 with a six-pack like that! At one point she even got the audience to count in as she started doing push-ups.

Throughout the night, No Doubt sung all of their top hits including: “Underneath It All”, “Don’t Speak”, “Just A Girl”,” Hey Baby”, “Simple Kind of Life”, “Hella Good”, “It’s My Life”, “Sunday Morning” and many more. Gwen came out during the second set with an outfit change, sporting a shimmery black and silver checkered number. She looked so cute as she ran from one end of the stage to the other. She even pulled an audience member up to sing one of the songs with her. He had the lyrics to one of the songs printed on a big poster and she told him to come up and sing it while carrying the poster. Gwen made sure to have fun on stage while incorporating the audience. Near the second half of the show, she made sure to thank the audience for our continued support and that she gets to have the best job in the world because we made it possible for her.

An audience member in the end even drew a sketch of her and her kids on a poster, she loved it so much she kept it.

It was nice to have witnessed this high energy and fun show and recapture all of my favourite tunes from my high school days. No Doubt is definitely one of those bands where everyone remembers a tune that represents a moment in their youth.

The No Doubt reunion tour continues in North America until August 12, 2009 when they end their North American leg of the tour in Honolulu, HI. For more information about tours and other events, please check out the No Doubt website.

Image courtesy of the author