(50) Sundays of Music: #35

#35: No Doubt - The Singles

Based on longevity, Gwen Stefani may be my biggest celebrity crush of all time. Ever since I first learned of No Doubt, I was attracted to this spunky not-your-ordinary-type girl. It helped that I learned of them around the time posters of half-naked girls where going on my wall. Ah, adolescence.

I first saw No Doubt headline a summer festival in California called Wango Tango. I'm not sure what year it was, but it was pretty soon after "Rock Steady" had come out. I was amazed at the way Stefani captured the stage and when I say them years later in 2009 for their summer reunion tour (after Gwen had gone off and done her solo thing) I had the same reaction. That girl (woman) owns that stage.

Now I have just devoted two paragraphs gushing over my love for the lead singer of No Doubt. Here is where I need to state the obvious: the band itself is amazing. Pretty much why I had to put the greatest hits cd on here.

This cd had it all. "Don't Speak" "Sunday Morning" "New" "Hella Good" "Underneath It All"... at this rate I would name the whole track list. I just love this band though. From the super fast pumped-up songs to the slower melodies, they can do it all. It helps that Stefani's voice can rise and fall to compliment the band really well.

And I have to talk about this. I truly feel Paramore has to owe some of their success to the path that No Doubt paved for them. Am I sexist and saying it's because they both have female singers? No, there are plenty of female-fronted bands that don't get compared to No Doubt. But Paramore is the closest when at times I felt like Hayley Williams could have been Gwen's little sister. Plus, I think this comparison speaks for itself (just my opinion though):

But the real reason this cd made the countdown? Because the entire thing is available for download on Rock Band. And since I got it, I have enjoyed drumming many a times. And yes, I've even grabbed the mic here and there.

So while I could post every single song because, well, it's a greatest hits cd, I will try to keep it to a few.









And if you haven't seen this already, this is me from when we saw them in Atlanta:

Music Sunday: 2009 Concerts I Attended

The Sounds/Paramore/No Doubt
June 5, Atlanta

On our way to the concert
The Sounds and their awesome performance

Paramore (fun fact: heard "Ignorance" before it was released and thought "I really like this song")

With the lead singer of The Sounds, missing the beginning of No Doubt but it was worth it...

Because I asked her to sign the ticket like that (that's what she kept saying on stage) and she laughed and actually did it

No Doubt doing their thing

And this is apparently me rocking out to No Doubt doing their thing

Not to overstate, but they were amazing

And when we got home, we could NOT stop laughing about this:




Envy On The Coast/Anberlin/Taking Back Sunday
June 17, Atlanta

Envy On The Coast opening up (and doing a damn good job of it)

Anberlin getting us to the main event

The band we all came to see

And the man we all came to see (Adam Lazarra)

The following is a video I didn't take, just found it on youtube. I was probably in the back trying to catch my breath:




Warped Tour 2009
July 28, Atlanta

Warped Tour is always so much fun

Underoath

Me w/ Saosin

Bayside

Senses Fail

The Devil Wears Prada

A Day To Remember and their insanely huge crowd for not being on a main stage

w/ the lead singer of Senses Fail

Chiodos closing out the day

The following is the craziness of seeing Underoath live:

Incubus
August 14, Atlanta

I only got two good pics, which is a shame really

because that concert was absolutely amazing

And the following is one of the sickest intros to a concert I have ever seen:

Carolina Liar/Taking Back Sunday
September 18, Tuscaloosa

Now this one hurt, because I had to attend my rival school's campus in order to watch this show. And when we were there, the coliseum was not even half full so that was disappointing. But what wasn't disappointing was their performance. However, there was one more thing that was disappointing: no pictures. But I did a quick youtube search and found the following video from that concert that displays just why I love this band so much:

The Swellers/Paper Route/Paramore
October 27, Atlanta

The Swellers

A cool collage my friend made of Paper Route and their 27 instruments

Paramore owning the place

And Hayley owning my heart

These pics were taken from a friend's camera, and I had to search youtube once again for a video from that show. Everybody's (and my) favorite song from the new album seems to be Misguided Ghosts, and this their performance, complete with the crowd (that would include myself) joining in



Minus the Bear
November 10, Birmingham

A show we bought tickets for at the last minute, I also did not have a camera for this one and relied on the tube to bring the greatness to this blog post. It turned out to be our last show of the year after failing to see Anberlin/All American Rejects/Taking Back Sunday at the end of November and Saosin at the beginning of December (I also missed Blink-182 in September and still kick myself for it). But if this is a band you haven't heard of, you need to know. Show was epic.



So ends the look back at 2009. I already have Muse in February and Warped Tour (possibly in Chicago -- WHAT) to look forward to, but here's hoping that some of my favorite bands hit the road and here's really hoping I have my own camera this time.