“You are my community, you are my people,” pop star Gwen Stefani told the sold-out and cheering crowd at Honda Center in Anaheim on Saturday night, Sept. 9. “I am so grateful for every single person who listened to my music all these years.”
Stefani — who was born and raised in a home just a few miles from the arena where her band No Doubt formed — received a mighty welcome from the hometown crowd. It was a family affair, too, as her mother and father, Dennis and Patti Stefani, and her younger brother, Todd Stefani, and sister-in-law, Jennifer, were also in attendance and spotted singing along.
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Before the show, fans were seen dressed in various signature Stefani style and posing in front of themed photo ops located throughout the arena. While most embraced the No Doubt “Tragic Kingdom” more rockabilly look, others went for Stefani’s “Return of Saturn” cotton candy pink hair era; and there were plenty sporting her more glam L.A.M.B. fashion made popular in her “The Sweet Escape” and “Love. Angel. Music. Baby.” solo album days.
Tapped to help the venue celebrate its 30th anniversary this year, Stefani has now played at Honda Center (formerly The Arrowhead Pond) 10 times, tying her with British singer and pianist Elton John and Mexican singer-songwriter and musician Marco Antonio Solís for the artists who have performed on that stage the most.
With it being a hometown show, she did bust out a few things that were special. Since she’s gone solo and No Doubt has been on hiatus since 2015, Stefani has long peppered in No Doubt’s ska and reggae-infused hits with her more pop-focused solo material. And while she’s added some fun covers into the setlist through the years (like “The Tide is High” by The Paragons) and often brings out husband and country star Blake Shelton to duet on a few tunes (the more country-leaning “Nobody But You” “Go Ahead and Break My Heart” and “Happy Anywhere”), there were popular No Doubt songs absent from the performances that fans begged for on social media.
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She must have been feeling a bit nostalgic on Saturday night as she busted out a stripped down version of No Doubt’s 1995 single “Excuse Me Mr.,” which she prefaced by saying she hadn’t played it in so long because she had “gotten over it.” She also played the 2000 hit, “Simple Kind of Life,” noting that it was “the first song I wrote on my own on guitar.”
There were plenty of fans before the show expressing their deepest desire for this to be the night that No Doubt would reunite. But it wasn’t meant to be, even in the same venue where the group filmed its “Live in the Tragic Kingdom” concert film in 1997. However, Stefani has continued to tour with original trumpet and keys player Stephen Bradley, who was on deck Saturday to playfully dance and sing alongside her.
She also didn’t bring out Shelton for any songs and kept things very locally focused. She shouted out some of her favorite shopping centers, restaurants and Loara High School in Anaheim. Opening with “The Sweet Escape,” she also played the solo hits “Cool,” “Used to Love You,” “Baby Don’t Lie,” “Rich Girl,” “Luxurious,” “Wind It Up” and a juiced up version of “What You Waiting For?” that shook the building as fans jumped along.
Though she’s released several singles more recently, she only played her latest, “True Babe.” She admitted that she knew this hometown crowd wanted to hear the hits, but asked “Will you suffer through this for me?” The audience seemed to like bopping along to the song, which is arguably the best of her latest batch of tunes.
Fans kept on dancing to No Doubt’s “Hella Good,” “Hey Baby,” “Don’t Speak,” “Spiderwebs,” “Sunday Morning,” “Bathwater,” “Underneath it All” and the band’s version of Talk Talk’s “It’s My Life.” Of course, she played “Just a Girl,” a powerful anthem she wrote when she was 25, still living at home with her parents, and a song she said she figured “would go out of style,” at the time.
She wrapped up the evening by again expressing her gratitude to anyone and everyone who has continued to listen to her music. She finished strong, lost in a flurry of yellow and white confetti, as her brood of backup dancers, who were carrying and dancing with oversized bananas as props, upped the energy level for the foot-stompin,’ hand-clappin’ “Hollaback Girl.”
Gwen Stefani: Honda Center’s 30th Anniversary
When: Saturday, Sept. 9
Where: Honda Center, Anaheim
