“I didn’t think this was really going to happen, did you?” shouted Gwen Stefani halfway through “Hella Good,” the opening song from No Doubt during their reunion set at Coachella 2024.
Indeed, it’s been 12 years since the SoCal quartet reunited for their last album “Push and Shove,” and they last performed together in 2015. (Stefani pointed this out numerous times throughout their Coachella set.) In the time since, Stefani has become something of a cult personality and evergreen TV presence as a judge on “The Voice,” releasing a handful of one-off singles as a reminder that, yes, she is still a singer first and foremost, even if her glory days as No Doubt’s frontwoman and a solo juggernaut in the 2000s are far behind her.
Perhaps, then, No Doubt’s reunion at Coachella served as a worthy reassurance — or a colorful, energetic statement — that there are no signs of rust more than 30 years after they debuted with their 1992 eponymous album. The band, consisting of Stefani, bassist Tony Kanal, guitarist Tom Dumont and drummer Adrian Young, played an 80-minute set filled with vigor and spark, as if they were still the spunky teenagers that were shown in vintage footage on the screens behind them.