NO DOUBT LIVE MADISON SQUARE GARDEN 120596-01- EXCUSE ME MR

Girls Will Be Girls, and So Will Their Fans
By JON PARELES
Published: December 7, 1996 NY TIMES

Girls outnumbered boys by at least 2 to 1 at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night. But Gwen Stefani of No Doubt enlisted the boys to sing by themselves. ''I'm just a girl,'' they shouted, making her laugh.

It had been a night of sing-alongs, most of them in the eager sopranos of high-school girls who hear their own stories in the Top 10. No Doubt topped the bill at the sold-out Z-100 Jingle Ball, an annual benefit concert organized by WHTZ (100.3 FM) that raises money while demonstrating the station's clout among performers. (Profits went to Share, a nonprofit support organization for breast and ovarian cancer patients, and to Ronald McDonald House.) In 1996, for the first time, all 10 acts on the bill were led by women, reflecting pop's surge of female songwriters.

Teen-age girls have always been the most fervent and demonstrative part of the pop audience. Now, instead of just pining after male idols, they also hear a significant number of spokeswomen for female perspectives, from affection to vindictiveness. With the blockbuster success of Alanis Morissette (who was not on the bill but was emulated, with vocal quavers and yelps, by Leah Andreone) and the continued rise of No Doubt, the music business is now busily cultivating feisty women.

As a sampler of commercially thriving female roles, the concert showed stirrings of new attitudes amid the longtime conventions of women as loyal, nurturing and incomplete without a lover. There were kiss-off songs from No Doubt and Shawn Colvin, and songs about social issues from Sheryl Crow, Tracy Chapman and Ms. Andreone. Yet whether it was Ms. Chapman offering a lover a last chance in ''Give Me One Reason'' or Jewel singing about wanting to be ''Near You Always'' or Sarah McLachlan confessing, ''I'm drunk on my desire,'' women offered solace and affection. The hits were the love songs.

Most of the acts were guitar-strumming, folk-based performers, even if, like Ms. Crow, they now try to rock like the Rolling Stones. Three performers -- Susanna Hoffs, Merril Bainbridge and Patti Rothberg -- appeared with acoustic guitars on a second stage in the middle of the arena. The quieter the song, the louder the sing-along, as long as the song had been on the radio.

The show grew into a noncompetitive battle of the bands. Jewel, whose chameleonic vocals are more accomplished than her songwriting, and Ms. Chapman, whose band turns easy-rolling vamps into dramatic excursions, demonstrated their command of large-scale dynamics. Ms. Crow's band plodded through its set, as guitar solos crowded her voice and tempos seemed to slow down midsong.

No Doubt topped the bill with a burst of exhilaration. As the band played bouncy pop-ska tunes and danced like rubber-limbed cartoon characters, Ms. Stefani sang about romantic setbacks with a diva's vibrato and an imp's playfulness. As she ran and strutted and grinned, her act suggested that no matter what a girl had to put up with, she would prevail.

Category:

Music

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• doubt
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• lamb

[adanky]

Gwen is just so fuckin sick!!! She is the best performer ever

[cooljammer00]

fucking awesome Star Wars theme.

[whoaitsconner]

My dad saw them the two days after this on SNL.

[kyrzz]

YEA

[NoDoubt1991]

yeah,no doubt is the fucking best band in the whole fucking world!