Fans stunned by Gwen Stefani’s surprise announcement
Gwen Stefani has stunned fans today with a video announcement posted to social media that even her most loyal followers didn’t see coming.
Singer Gwen Stefani made an announcement today that even her most loyal fans couldn’t have anticipated: She and her former No Doubt band members are reuniting.
News of the band’s reunion comes after a widely-rumoured feud between Stefani and the other three members – bassist Tony Kanal, drummer Adrian Young and guitarist Tom Dumont.
No Doubt dropped the news today via a video posted to the band’s social accounts, which first showed Stefani solo, reminiscing about her time in the band.
Gwen starts to reminisce …
… and gets her former bandmates on a group call.
After a quick text to Kanal, the four members of No Doubt appeared on a Zoom call together, with Stefani asking: “Wow, how are you? What are we doing – why do we not hang out?”
“Maybe we should do a show?” Young asks, before the other members quickly agreed.
Later, a follow-up post revealed at least one big gig the band have booked for this reunion: They’ll be playing LA’s famed Coachella festival in April.
The sight of all four members of No Doubt together for the first time in almost a decade was enough to leave many fans stunned.
The group formed in the late 80s before being catapulted to worldwide fame with third album Tragic Kingdom in 1995, home to massive singles Don’t Speak and Just a Girl.
Two more studio albums followed before they went on hiatus in 2003, after which Stefani experienced even more success as a solo pop star.
No Doubt circa 1996 (L-R: Adrian Young, Tony Kanal, Gwen Stefani and Tom Dumont.
But a 2012 reunion was short-lived, their comeback album Push and Shove quickly disappearing from the charts.
The band’s final shows to date were a string of festival appearances in 2015 – and shortly after that was when rumours of a feud started.
Eagle-eyed fans noted that both Young and Dumont didn’t follow Stefani on Instagram (as of today, that still appears to be the case), and the three men in No Doubt announced in 2016 they were forming a brand new band without Gwen: Dreamcar, with AFI singer Davey Havok as vocalist.
“I’m just so happy for them because they’ve always been that guy band, wanting to do their own dude thing,” Stefani said diplomatically when asked about their new Gwen-less venture in a 2017 interview.
The band’s 2012 reunion was less successful.
Stefani also telling change around the same time when it came to her solo career. During the band’s hiatus, she’d only sung her own solo music during her concerts as a solo artist.
By the time she embarked on a Las Vegas residency in 2018, her setlist was peppered with almost a dozen of No Doubt’s classic hits. The inference seemed clear: No Doubt are no more, so I’m free to perform these songs solo now.
She said as much in a 2021 interview when asked if the band would ever reunite.
“We had done some big shows together, a bunch of festivals probably six years ago, and we knew that was kind of the last thing we were going to do together,” she confessed.
Until now …
