Q Magazine (September 1997)
Humungous
No Doubt: been there, done that, sold this much
Finger Lakes Performing Arts Center, Canadaigua
July 7, 1997
Canandaigua, nestled in the fabled Finger Lakes district of upstate New York, isn’t commonly regarded as a rock’n'roll epicentre. On the hill in front of the Performing Arts Center (an outdoor venue known in the trade as a barn, with covered seats and standing room in the elements), families in deck-chairs scoff picnics, kiddies practise their American football manoeuvres, while teenagers sprawl on ground-blankets among discarded soft-drink bottles. There’s a smattering of adult couples but the over-21 queues for alcohol are miserably short.
A large slice of tonight’s crowd are pre-teen girls, who, with their parents’ permission, fill up the seats, keen for America’s currently Most Wanted. Or more specifically, their heroine, No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani. Her role-model status was confirmed by the band's humungous hit Just A Girl, while US and UK Number 1 single Don’t Speak helped push their third album, Tragic Kingdom, to 10 million sales, thus making No Doubt the first band to rise from California’s ska-punk underground. Their fan-base has changed somewhat.
“Last night, in Columbus, Ohio, was particularly weird, the most mainstream audience you could play for,” moans bassist and Stefani’s ex, Tony Kanal. “Tonight isn’t going to be too hot either. All those families.”
After the show, Kanal was still unhappy. “He objected to the two businessmen standing right in front of him, with their two little kids,” smiles Stefani, but she has no problem with it. “When I was young, seeing shows was so intense, and those kids will always remember our show. Being in a band for so long, we’ve done it all. When we were 16, we played for our peers, then we played lots of colleges, and when Just A Girl hit, all these young people got into us. Finally, when Don’t Speak hit, suddenly the older people got into us too. You can’t choose who’s going to like you. We’re lucky anyone pays attention.”
As teenagers rebelling against California’s sunshine culture by embracing the music of a colder climate, No Doubt made it difficult for themselves. Unheard-of ska was their poison, since Gwen's older brother Eric (and founding No Doubter) brought home Madness’s Baggy Trousers.
“It was fun, unique and energetic,” she gushes. “Before, I'd dreamed of being in The Sound Of Music.”
Founder member Kanal and guitarist Tom Dumont, who joined in 1988, abandoned their respective funk and metal obsessions for 2-Tone's inter-racial message and rhythmic spring. Drummer Adrian Young, who joined in 1989, needed no conversion.
"Hearing The Specials at 13 gave me more energy than anything else and the 2-Tone thing in California felt like a community, something of our own.”
In their first year, No Doubt’s naturally positive vibe was blown when co¬ vocalist John Spence committed suicide. Since then, they’ve survived being No Credibility (“We came from rich, conservative Orange County and I was never cool or angry enough for some people,” Stefani shrugs), releasing their quirky, skanky self-titled debut album just as grunge exploded. Their label, Interscope, subsequently foisted producers on them “and told us to turn the guitars up”. Her weary brother quit (until recently he animated The Simpsons) and Tragic Kingdom was released a year after completion.
Then, Stefani and Kanal’s tempestuous seven-year relationship ended. But, like Abba and Fleetwood Mac, No Doubt touched gazillions of hearts and pockets by exploiting their internal misery in song. Two years on, and with jilted Stefani now an item with Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale, the ex-lovers claim they get along better than ever, even after two years of solid touring.
Young admits to reaching “the burnt-toast stage” a year ago and Dumont snarls, “Journalists don’t give a fuck about our musicianship, they just want to know about Gavin.” A clampdown on interviews and photo shoots highlighting only Stefani-as predicted in the Don’t Speak video - has drastically improved band spirits.
"The audiences help too,” Dumont reckons. “If they suck, we feel bad, but if they’re great, we’re pumped up. We get the kids, but we also get the big fat guy who’s probably a Lynyrd Skynyrd fan or the ex-heavy metal mom who dresses sexier than her daughter. We’ve broken a lot of stereotypes.”
Pork pie hats are nevertheless absent in Canandaigua. Support band The Selecter, one of No Doubt’s original 2-Tone heroes (Stefani’s first public appearance was singing their debut single On My Radio at a talent contest), are politely received at best. Meanwhile, a dog-pitched shriek greets the headliners’ stage set as it lights up, a backdrop of glittery stars, and gnarly, silvery trees straight out of Edward Scissorhands, decorated with orange lights. It’s a twisted homage to their hometown’s premier tourist attraction, Disneyland.
Augmented by trumpeter Stephen Bradley and trombonist/keyboardist Gabriel McNair, they kick off with their ode to Disneyland, Tragic Kingdom. It indicates how far No Doubt have travelled since playing 2-Tone covers, with its lurching art-rock shifts, a Van Halen solo from Dumont and Toyah-style wails from the already super-animated and perennially halter-topped Stefani.
As its whirlybird climax segues into the punky Excuse Me Mister, Stefani and Kanal crisscross the stage in exaggerated Keystone Cops fashion. It’s a sign of the pantomime entertainment that, after a ska-poppy Different People and Oi, which exchanges British Oi aggression for California bounce, climaxes on the new wave-chugging of Just A Girl. Stefani takes great pleasure in acting out the sarcastic Girl Power sentiments “I’m just a girl, all pretty and petite/So don’t let me have any rights” - by pulling coquettish, Shirley Temple faces, then burying her head in her hands before accepting flowers from Kanal which she chucks into the crowd. After making the males sing along, Stefani squeaks: “And the sweet, charming, innocent, sexy girls - would they like to sing?” and Canandaigua eardrums implode. The line she feeds them is defiantly parent-bating: “Fuck you, I’m a girl!” she screams. Enough girls defy their surroundings to make the moment genuinely thrilling.
"I don't want to change our show because our audience has changed. That would be unfair to us,” Stefani reasons. “Parents who bring their kids know they’re coming to a rock show, not Sesame Street. But I do feel bad when a little girl is standing right in front of me, I have to turn away. The ‘fuck you’ part comes from what the song brought me, ‘fuck you, I’m a girl, that’s just the way it is'. But we’ve never been about trying to change the world.”
Fears of a sluggish crowd banished, the show never looks back, although Stefani’s vocals suffer for her Nutty Girl athleticism. The glittery fake rain that descends during The Climb is subsequently swept up by three Fat Elvises (ie the guitar and drum roadies and production manager) in matching jump suits wielding garden leaf-blowers.
“We needed sweepers, otherwise that stuff gets slippery,” explains Young. “We never intended them to be Elvises, but why stop that kind of thing once it starts?”
An unplugged Hey You is another excuse for pre-pubescent hysteria, before the majestic break-up ballad Don’t Speak gets the whole family involved. Move On weaves in a snippet of The Specials’Ghost Town, another twiddly Dumont solo and choreographed skanking, before Sunday Morning’s pantomime finale. As Stefani introduces the band, she smooches with Bradley and rides piggyback on McNair.
Drummer Young gets his say too. As he walks off after the effervescent encore Spiderwebs, his boxer shorts are pulled down, a cheeky gesture to those businessmen at the front.
Before departing, Stefani announces that No Doubt are near the end of their American tour, “and how sad is that?” she deadpans. But they’re off to Europe again despite chronic road fatigue, before bowing out in New Delhi and Singapore.
“The people who kept buying our album in Europe last time around deserve to see us play or they won’t get what we’re about,” explains Stefani. Kanal is more pragmatic.
"We need to establish ourselves as a live band or we could be written off as something more pop and disposable. But we have to know when to stop.”
They're due to start a new album in January, although they’ve only written seven new songs.
“You can’t tour this much and write songs,” Stefani sighs. “But if success had come any earlier, I don’t think we could have handled it, to be honest. Hey, I’m relieved because we’ve proved we’re not total losers, but even if all this was taken away tomorrow, because everything's so crazy and times change, I’d say, Fucking great ending. I honestly wouldn’t be devastated. But we’re not finished yet, not by a long way.”