The Sounds/Katy Perry/No Doubt Concert Review

So, after a few mishaps, including getting bitten by my friend's dog and taking a rather interesting detour due to a fire right by the freeway, I got my early birthday present and was able to see No Doubt performing at the Verizon Wireless Ampitheater in Irvine, with The Sounds and Katy Perry as opening acts. It was one of the most fun concerts I've ever been to. Our seats were far back and to the side (we were on the farrrrr left of the verrrry last section before the lawn), but we still had a great view! I took lots and lots of pictures =)

The Sounds

Well, due to the above circumstances, we only got to see two or three of their songs. And it did not help that their amps were up so high that they basically just sounded like noise. Nice noise, to be sure, that made me want to go home and look them up, but noise all the same. I spent more time wondering how Maja Iversson was managing to jump around, let alone stand, in her heels (which were five inches if they were a centimeter) than actually enjoying the music. I did feel a bit bad for them though, because they were playing to a half-empty theater (most people came in after they were done) and they are actually really really good. Maybe this just wasn't their best show, maybe I needed to hear more of it to actually judge. In any case, I enjoyed the few songs I heard.

Katy Perry

And this is one act that was so much better than I expected! Regardless of the fact that she was obviously trying to make her stage look like a garage sale -- I'm not quite sure why else someone would have two plastic flamingos, a white picket fence, and several blow-up strawberries on stage with her, and be joined by a blow-up lipstick later on -- but she was so much fun to watch. She never stopped bouncing around the stage, except when she was playing her guitar. Katy was fun, energetic, seemed to genuinely love being onstage, and made a real effort to include the audience in her show. I would have chosen a different color scheme -- hers was pink and white, which meant that all the guys wore pink and white suits, and Katy herself was in a pink leotard with red sequins, black ballerina flats, and a (very) short pink tutu/skirt. She managed to pull off the outfit, the guys . . . a bit less.
I'd heard she was not a great live performer, and I only knew a few of her songs, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I must say she was very impressive, topping her album performance on several occasions. She also covered Queen, another band I love, singing "Don't Stop Me Now", and it was actually a good cover! I had sworn I would never go to a concert to see just her, but now I have to reconsider . . . my estimation of her talent as a singer/guitarist has certainly risen after this show.
SETLIST: Fingerprints, One of the Boys, Hot N Cold, Thinking of You, Ur So Gay, Waking Up in Vegas, Don't Stop Me Now, I Kissed a Girl

No Doubt

No Doubt, on the other hand, I had high expectations for. I had never actually seen them in concert before, but I grew up listening to their music and could not wait for this concert. It was everything I had hoped for! My friend and I stood up right when the band came onstage and didn't sit down again for the next . . . hour and 45 minutes, which I think is about how long the band played.
The set was a nice mix of Tragic Kingdom, Return of Saturn, and Rock Steady songs, with a few fun covers thrown in. I can proudly say that, except for the covers, I could sing along to every single song. The show started off with an excellent performance of "Spiderwebs", and the show just got better and better from there. They hit pretty much all of my favorite songs, and, although some were a bit different from their album versions (notably "Excuse Me Mr.") there was not a single song I disliked!
Apart from the music, the artistic aspect (set, costumes, etc.) was also brilliant. If Katy's color scheme was all pink and white, No Doubt's was black and white: the whole stage was white, the guys all wore white with a little bit of black, Gwen Stefani's outfit was black and white (all three of them!), and Adrian Young even dyed his mohawk . . . you guessed it, black and white! I really loved the design of the stage, which featured a whole bunch of rams (5 or 6) all leading up to the drum set in the middle. It was fun to watch the band members run up/slide down the ramps, which they didn't do nearly enough in my opinion ;). For a moment, when all the main stage lights went out, only the ramps were lit by a few glittery lights, and they looked soooo much like the Star Trek chevron that I had to laugh. There was a big screen behind the band that showed video clips -- sometimes of the song's music videos, sometimes of the band, and, on "Different People", some really cool outer space/planets images. The band was in top form as entertainers, not just performers. Gwen talked to the crowd -- not too much, but that was kind of to be expected, since this was their 52nd (!) show of the tour. Still, she took pictures of herself with a few of the fans from the very front, she made us sing along (especially fun was when she made all the guys sing the chorus to "I'm Just a Girl"). In any case, it was a joy to see them back together and all onstage. They were all running all over the stage and just generally having a good time. And, for the second of three encores, they did "Stand and Deliver", an Adam and the Ants cover, and Katy Perry and all of The Sounds came out to sing too! This was some of the most fun I've ever had at a concert!
SETLIST: Spiderwebs, Hella Good, Underneath It All, Excuse Me Mr., Ex-Girlfriend, Tragic Kingdom, Simle Kind of Life, Bathwater, ?, New, Hey Baby, Running, Different People, Don't Speak, It's My Life, Just a Girl, ---, Rock Steady, Stand and Deliver, Sunday Morning. {The "?" is an instrumental the band did while Gwen Stefani changed clothes, the "---" is the break between the set & the encore}