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Aside from playing Coachella in 2024 and L.A.’s FireAid benefit the following year, No Doubt hasn’t performed since 2015. That ended May 6 with a full-scale reunion and the first of 18 shows at the Sphere in Las Vegas. (We’re already betting that the run will be extended.)
The band embraced its Orange County upbringing from the start. Prior to the show, promotional posters from past performances at the Whisky, Roxy and Viper Room were plastered across the massive Sphere screens—mixed among youthful photos and videos of the band. Then the voice of Gwen Stefani came across the speakers.
“Vegas, you got your seatbelts on? Because I’m about to tell you a little story. Once upon a time in a land 254 miles away, where oranges grow on every tree, some kids found each other and began making some music in the shadow of the Tragic Kingdom. This is our story.”
Then the wild rollercoaster ride began. In theme-park style, a nod to Disneyland and their Anaheim roots, the seats vibrated as the band took fans through a wormhole of a spoiled orange transporting the audience back to the beginning, symbolizing a rebirth as they opened the show with “Tragic Kingdom,” a song they last performed in 2009.
The Sphere residency focuses heavily on Tragic Kingdom, No Doubt’s breakthrough album from 1995. In a near two-hour show, Gwen Stefani, Tony Kanal, Tom Dumont and Adrian Young performed 10 songs from that album alone. Not only did they play hits like “Spiderwebs,” “Just A Girl” and “Sunday Morning,” but also “Excuse Me Mr.” and “Climb,” which the group last played live 29 years ago.
The high-octane performance saw the band—most dressed in plaid—jumping energetically across the stage the entire night. At times, the checkerboard stage actually seemed dwarfed by the mesmerizing, swirling graphics behind them. During “Bathwater,” for example, a whale swallows the audience and the scene switches to an under-the-sea animation with mermaids and fish swimming across the screen. Later on, No Doubt dropped foam oranges onto the crowd while performing “Don’t Speak.”
Any commentary on the band’s career comes through a series of video vignettes and interviews during costume changes where the bandmates reminisce about the fun they had touring, making music videos and growing up in the MTV era—and finding success when it wasn’t necessarily expected.
“Originally, the songs were written from a lot of pain,” Stefani says at one point addressing her breakup with bandmate Tony Kanal. “I was doing it because it was just coming out of me. This natural way of healing myself. I was never consciously writing these songs, thinking, oh, someone’s gonna relate to this, or it would help somebody, I was writing these songs to express what I was feeling, kind of writing them for Tony.”
She continued, “People say you can’t choose your family, but we did.”
No Doubt performs at the Sphere through June 13.
When and where is No Doubt performing?
When: May 15, 16, 21, 23, 24, 27, 29, 30. June 3, 5, 6, 10, 12, 13.
Location: Sphere Las Vegas
What’s on the setlist?
The near two-hour show consists of 21 songs.
“Tragic Kingdom”
“Excuse Me Mr.”
“Different People”
“Total Hate ’95”
“Spiderwebs”
“Underneath It All”
“Hey Baby”
“Bathwater”
“Ex-Girlfriend”
“Happy Now”
“Hella Good”
“The Climb”
“Running”
“It’s My Life”
“Simple Kind of Life”
“Don’t Speak”
“Trapped in a Box”
“New”
“End It on This”
“Just a Girl”
“Sunday Morning”