Rock Steady Show Leaves No Doubt About '80s Revival
03.19.2002
SACRAMENTO, California — If Republicans, "Dukes
of Hazzard" reruns and an abundance of heavy metal weren't
enough to convince you, No Doubt's Rock Steady road show leaves
little doubt that the 1980s are back.
(Click here for photos.)
On the tour's opening night, the Orange County ska-popsters
mined flavors from across the retro-'80s spectrum, mixing driving
hardcore and rasta riddims with slap-bass funk, new wave synth
and pop queen balladry. With a punked-out rhythm section, two
dread-stylie horn players, a guitarist straight out of a Duran
Duran video and bare-bellied, necktie-wearing Gwen-just-wanna-have-fun-Stefani
up front, they even looked the part.
The drum set glowed under the Memorial Auditorium's
gilded columns and arches as the band emerged, immediately shouting
out to the Cali tweaker culture from which it sprang with the
heavy dancehall chunk of "Hella Good." The bandmembers
bounced up and down as they laid into the groove, and the crowd
happily bounced along with them.
While the popular Rock Steady (turned out with help
from '80s icons Prince, the Cars' Ric Ocasek and Jamaican producers
Sly and Robbie) sometimes betrays its Reagan-era aesthetic with
thin sound or overwrought production, No Doubt's energetic live
show infused the new tunes with life and depth.
Wearing a red-and-white striped bra over a cutoff
tanktop, a gold necktie and black-and-white striped hiphuggers
(not to mention the sparkling thong straps that arced out of them),
Stefani prowled the front of the stage, working the crowd like
an aerobics instructor with a dark side. The singer's platinum
blonde topknot nodded to Madonna, but the little girls in the
hall, in their hand-painted pants and magic-markered faces, were
full-on Gwen Stefwannabes.
Angled scrims overhung the stage, decorated with
the black, white and red all over paintbrush graffiti of the Rock
Steady album cover — a shout to the 1950s checkerboards and
purposeful punk sloppiness popular when Generation X was in high
school.
Shirtless drummer Adrian Young, with horns protruding
from his Godzilla-like mohawk, started "Sunday Morning"
with a freight train roll. Bassist Tony Kanal, sporting yellow
spiked hair and plaid pants, ran across the stage as he dropped
the band into the Tragic Kingdom tune's roots-reggae rhythm.
Like a pair of bookends on either side of the glowing
drum kit, skinny-dreaded trumpeter Stephen Bradley kicked up his
heels while nappy-dreaded trombonist/synthesizer player Gabriel
McNair dialed in dark, spacey synth sounds to intro "Ex-Girlfriend."
Kanal's bass quacked out slap-pop funk as the tune switched between
subdued and full-throttle.
Guitarist Tom Dumont hit the wah-wah pedal as the
band laid back into the spare, UB40-esqe pop reggae of "Underneath
It All," giving Stefani space to ask, "Do you really
want to love me/ Underneath it all?" The horn section filled
out the sound with big band power, bringing even the lighter reggae
down to its roots.
"Are you ready to show me why we're here in
Sacramento first?" Stefani begged the crowd, pumping the
audience like a veteran cheerleader. "I want to see everybody
jumping!"
Young stepped out front on percussion for the ooky
"In My Head." Stefani brooded, a jealous lover trying
to keep her head straight. "I try to think about rainbows
when it gets bad/ ... Long distance, don't talk about/ Ex-girlfriends,
don't talk about/ You without me, don't talk about/ The past/
In my head/ It's only in my head." Dumont's blue-and-yellow-circled
guitar ticked, underscoring the paranoid lover's descent into
madness.
Kanal led the band back into the rave hall with
the digga-digga-digga-digga bassline on "Making Out."
While the synthesizers spun out the sine waves, the audience hooted
like rave kids ("Woot! Woot!"). Stefani pumped her fist,
cheering the band as it laid into the danceable groove. No Doubt
appeared to be having a ball with the new material, making even
the angry jilt of "Detective" seem fun — albeit
dark, fun-house fun.
Then the scrims fell away, revealing a giant, golden
"ND" logo on the backstage wall (think Abba). Dumont,
in floodwater pants, an unstructured sport jacket and a frosted
Simon Le Bon bouffant, picked up the keyboard guitar (yes, the
keyboard with the guitar neck) for the powerfully hooky hit "Hey
Baby." The very now-sounding dance-pop tune — an ironic
ode to flirtatious groupies — sounded out of place, a departure
from the rest of the set, but came across with enormous sound
as Bradley and McNair came down off the riser to rap out Bounty
Killer's break in stereo.
The crowd ranged from 6-year-old kids to their parents
— but even the "Hey Baby" teenyboppers, decked
out in their navel-baring Gwenstefinery, knew the words to the
empowering 1995 hit "Just a Girl." It's the kind of
tune that demonstrates the difference between Stefani's sexy-because-I'm-having-a-good-time
persona and the sexy-because-I'm-humping-the-mic-stand approach
of some other current pop tarts.
During the encore, Stefani crooned the slow-jam
"Running," and several fans raised their lighters in
tribute. It was all that was left.
—Richard B. Simon
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