The Orange County Register (Sept. 9th 2016)

Gwen Stefani to perform final Irvine Meadows concerts before it closes next month

After 36 years of hosting legendary tours, one-of-a-kind performances and numerous multi-stage and artist festivals, Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre will close for good following two evenings with Gwen Stefani on Oct. 29-30. The singer announced the shows this morning during an appearance on KIIS-FM.

The former Anaheim resident, No Doubt frontwoman and Grammy award-winning solo artist will be bringing the final dates of her This is What the Truth Feels Like Tour to her home county and Irvine's own indie rock outfit Young the Giant will serve as support for one last hurrah at the iconic outdoor concert venue.

"I'm devastated," Stefani said of the closing during an interview earlier this week. "I don't remember my first time going there because I have a really bad memory, but I remember the first time playing there and it was opening for Ziggy Marley and I remember thinking 'How on God's great Earth are we playing here?'"

That show was back in 1990, five years before No Doubt would hit big with its third record, "Tragic Kingdom." No Doubt performed at Irvine Meadows numerous times throughout the years including a main stage slot at KROQ's annual Weenie Roast in 1996. It stopped by for one night during the Return of Saturn tour in 2000 and the band played four sold-out nights there in 2009. Stefani even brought her second solo tour, The Sweet Escape Tour, to the venue for two sold-out nights in 2007. She hadn't talked to the other members of No Doubt about performing during these final shows, but said "You know what? You never say never. You never know what can happen."

For the last few months, Stefani has been out on tour in support of her third and most personal solo album, "This Is What the Truth Feels Like," which dropped in March. After feeling as if she'd never write another song, let alone go out on another full-fledged tour again, the heartache she suffered going through a divorce from fellow musician Gavin Rossdale -- her husband of 13 years and the father of their three children, Kingston, Zuma and Apollo -- relaunched her desire to write, as did her eventual romance with country singer Blake Shelton, whom she met while the pair were coaches on NBC's "The Voice."

"I never in my wildest dreams thought I would tour again just because of what my life had evolved into," she said candidly. "I didn't know even how I would do it, so for me to get up there and have this record and to have gone through what I went through last year, to end up back in Orange County and closing Irvine Meadows, it's such a triumph for me."

Writing songs like "Used to Love You," "Misery" and "Make Me Like You" saved her life, Stefani said. Unlike when she attempted to write during the last No Doubt album, "Push and Shove" in 2012, these new songs came flowing out, one after the other.

"That writing process was kind of the most unbelievable, miraculous, God-given healing process that I've ever had in my life," she said. "I really was done before that. I tired to make that last No Doubt record and I was so burned out that I was physically ill. Nothing was coming to me like it used to, so I accepted that's where I was at. But, there was always a place inside me that didn't believe I was done. I guess God gives you challenges in life for a reason and it's a calling like 'OK, hello, time to wake up and for you to use your gift.'

"I knew I needed to do this because it was my life support system. If I wouldn't have done it, I knew I'd just be dead. It was a gift to be able to express myself that way and also get to a point where I was falling in love again and getting to experience that for the first time in the writing sense and to be able to write some happy songs. It was just an amazing journey."

Stefani is excited about her small role in the forthcoming animated feature "Trolls," but as the tour winds down and she ponders her next moves, which could include doing another collection with Costa Mesa-based make-up company Urban Decay, diving back into her clothing, handbag and perfume brands and collaborating with other artists on future music projects, she reminds herself to live in the moment. She still has two nearly sold-out gigs at the Forum in Inglewood on Oct. 15-16 before she wraps it up at Irvine Meadows and she wants to really let it all sink in.

It was a place where her parents were too strict to let her go out to see Oingo Boingo on Halloween night, but they still took her and her siblings out to see UB40 back in the day. She recalls saying to herself, "Oh my God I'm on Weenie Roast! We made it!" as No Doubt hit that milestone two decades ago.

The fact that she's turning the page on this chapter of her life with this current tour and it just so happens to coincide with her being chosen to help give a proper send off to one of her favorite venues, is not at all lost on her, it all just seems so perfectly timed.

"I don't even know how I got so lucky," she said with a sigh.