No Doubt’s Thrilling Coachella Set Unites Multiple Generations of Fans: ‘We Grew Up on Them!’

variety.com:

electrifying set on Saturday night proved, No Doubt were Coachella 2024’s secret weapon. Sure, people were excited when the band presence at the festival — their first concert in nine years — was first announced, but the run-up to it was pretty low-key.

And then BAM, the group clobbered the audience with one of the most powerful sets in recent Coachella history, a joyous, hyper-energetic romp through their deceptively deep catalog, playing like a young band at the peak of its powers instead of one that hadn’t performed publicly for nearly a decade.

As Variety writer Steven J. Horowitz noted in his review of the set, “It would have been an easy out for No Doubt to come across as one of the de facto nostalgia acts of the weekend,” he wrote. “But it’s a testament to the chemistry they’ve had since their formation and subsequent mainstream ascent that they can still harness that same energy with conviction, especially for a band whose members are all in their mid-50s.” It seems likely that this was the opening salvo in what is hopefully a months-long No Doubt revival, because the set showed the band in Super Bowl halftime-headliner form.

Yet as proven by the presence of special guest Olivia Rodrigo — who was born in 2003, three years after the release of “Bathwater,” the song she sang with frontwoman Gwen Stefani on Saturday — No Doubt isn’t just for aging millennials reliving their youth: The band and Stefani’s appeal and influence reaches across generations and is very present and relevant today.