Twelve Years in the Making

Tragic Kingdom was the first album I ever bought. I was thirteen and primed for a hot female rock n roll chick to look up to. One day, on MTV, there she was, singing I'm Just a Girl. "YESSS!!!" I thought to myself, and listened to that album non stop for years. I remember writing notes to Emine and signing them as Gwen. We were soooo bummed when we didn't get to go see No Doubt and Bush together, man that would have been the concert of the century! However more than a decade later, I have finally seen No Doubt and believe me they did not disappoint.

They played pretty much the entire Boom Box album (greatest hits) with the exception of a few songs. There was a large screen behind the band that showed different videos during the songs. They were very bright and colorful (a nice contrast to all the metal shows I've been to ;). During one song (I can't remember which one now, one of the slower ones) they featured a video of clips of the band from back in the day when they started. It was really neat and gave you a sense of "look how far they have come." The stage setup was pretty cool, it was all white, with a large semicircle sloped platform of which the drums sat in the middle. The entire band came out initially in all white suit type outfits, which really worked nicely with the lighting. Of course there were costume changes and by the end of the night Gwen had on a sparkly silver and black top and Adrian had on a Dallas Stars jersey, pink tutu, and tube socks... HA!

The Sounds and Paramore both opened. I hadn't heard The Sounds before but I knew they were Swedish, so they already had my attention (I have a thing for Scandinavian bands). They were pretty good, really reminded me of Blondie and Abba. Paramore was next and I'm already a huge Paramore fan so I was really looking forward to seeing them again. They played a great show and everyone was really into them. It was interesting to see so many different age groups represented. There were the young 14 year old girls all the way to 30 year old woman. That of course makes me feel old, since I'm on the older end of that scale, but whatever.

I haven't uploaded pictures yet, I should do that tonight and they will be on facebook. All in all it was an AWESOME concert and if you get a chance to catch it, please do. I will definitely try and get floor tickets the next time they come around.

Less than three,
V