I’ve been a fan of No Doubt since “I’m just a Girl” was released and made a huge impact on myself and on the kids in my high school. I might not love every song on every album, but there is a lot of great material from this band and I really wanted to see them live on stage and I know a few people who have seen them in the past and loved their performance and said that Gwen is crazy on stage and I'm glad to say the band and the openings were totally awesome! So when I heard they were touring in the summer I searched their schedule and realized that they were going to perform at the PNC bank and I was like that’s a great place for the summer and unlike other venues in the NJ/NY area, PNC uses Live Nation so it took forever to finalize the dates of when the tickets would be on sale, but eventually they were on sale and luckily I was able to get good seats.
If anyone reading this is from the NJ/NY area would know that we had monsoon weather around 6:30pm on Friday night, June 26, and that was the time I and a friend were just parking the car at the venue and so we stayed in the car until the rain died out a bit. We trooped it to the entrance which was confusing because of the weather and we were hungry so we grabbed a pretzel each and then went for drinks and at this point, we already heard Janelle Monae on stage and so we finally were walking to our seats and we got to see her close her set which the crowd seemed to have enjoyed her performance.
And after about 15 minutes or so… Paramore backdrop was shown and the audience started screaming and my friend turns to me making a smart statement questioning whether there were more people here excited to see Paramore than no doubt and I told her there definitely might be. I know I came to see No Doubt but having Paramore open was a very cool bonus and let me tell you they did not disappoint. The lead singer, Hayley Williams seems so tiny from our seats, but was rockin’ it… and she was a total rock chick and thought their performance was really great. They came out and started off with their hit “Misery Business” and it was a total crowd pleas er, majority of the audience stood up and sang along, some to the chorus and others to every word. Hayley mentioned they were away for a while making a record and it’s finally done and so they played a new song, “Ignorance” which is scheduled to be the first single to be released sometime in July off the new album, Brand New Eyes, which should be released in September. Then they moved onto other hits, like “CrushCrushCrush”, and “When it Rains”. And then they performed another song off their upcoming album, “When the Lines Overlap” and then to another hit “That’s What You Get”, and “Let the Flame Begin” and lastly performed “Decode”, which was off the soundtrack from the hugely successful film Twilight and they actually dedicated that song to Michael Jackson.
I’m actually curious to hear their past full albums and their upcoming album… I had downloaded a few songs in the past but I don’t own a full album, but will definitely give it a try… and will be happy to see them again live if they go on tour for their upcoming album. The entire band was fun to watch and I really enjoyed the show!
http://www.imeem.com/paramore
And finally our main attraction, No Doubt got on stage and opened with “Spiderwebs”. The stage was very clean and sleek all in white and the actual band themselves were dressed in white and black and screen behind them had some videos of the band, which was very cool. They sang hits after hits, such as, "Underneath it All", "Excuse Me" and very quickly moved onto "Ex-Girlfriend". Gwen Stefani then started shaking the hands from the first few rows and the audience had some signs and she began to read them and actually started signing autographs and then stated, “I have to go, I have to go”. During “Simple Kind of Life”, when Gwen sang, “I always thought I’d be a mom” the crowd went crazy and Gwen lit up the place with her great smile and moved onto “Bathwater” before departing the stage and the rest of the band fooled around and before you knew it Gwen was back on stage, wearing grey and black sparkly short suit and started singing “Hey Baby”, then “Running”, “Different People”, “Don’t Speak”, “It’s My Life” and then “I’m Just a Girl” which was the highlight for me – you never forget your first and that was the first song I loved from them!
They thanked the crowd and the band went backstage, but Gwen interacted again with the audience and finally left to meet up with her band, but in reality to change clothes again. We stuck around and they finally got back on stage for a 3song encore! Adrian came back in a tutu and Gwen with another costume change (as predicted) and performed a very chill "Rock Steady" and then Paramore and Janelle Monae came on stage and they were all jamming together and then they stepped away and No Doubt closed the show with "Sunday Morning" which was a great end er…just a fun pumped up song!
I've been to several rock concerts and I must admit this entire concert was definitely in the tops for me. I suggest anyone who has a chance to see them live - go, check them out and have fun! I don't recall now if it was Gwen or Hayley, but one of them said a great line, "this is the best summer concert to be at" and i must agree!
http://www.imeem.com/nodoubt
