Southern California music has scored a point tonight at Coachella. Sublime and No Doubt conquered the audience with sets that evoked the carefree and relaxed attitude of the West Coast musical style. Ska and rock sounded from the main stage of the festival, which receives about 100,000 people every year, although this year it seems much less crowded. It was a day full of nostalgia for the nineties, when these groups released their most popular albums and were propelled by MTV to international fame. For the first band it is the first big concert since its vocalist died 28 years ago. For the second it was the first concert in nine years. It was all about remembering until Tyler, the Creator brought us back to the present to close the second night with a great conceptual number that included appearances by Childish Gambino, ASAP Rocky and Kali Uchis.
Sublime had a poignant point. The group attracted thousands of followers thanks to its eponymous album in 1996. This is a cult object for music fans of that decade. In addition to being the best of a short discography of only three albums, it was released two months after the death of the band’s leader, the charismatic Bradley Nowell.
Despite this, tens of thousands heard Nowell’s voice this Saturday. This came from Jakob, his only son. He recently met with the original members of Sublime. Bud Gaugh and Eric Wilson had been playing with another vocalist for several years under the name Sublime with Rome. They’ve been back to being just Sublime since December, when they played with Jakob for the first time at a bar in Los Angeles. He had belonged to a couple of groups and projects, but his biggest platform today has been doing what his father did, who died at the same age he is, 28 years old. More than an imitation of the style, attendees were surprised by the physical resemblance and by having the same tone of voice. “This is a family affair,” Jakob said at one point during the concert.
The group opened with April 29, 1992 a song from their most famous album that also served to travel back in time. They took a 50-minute tour of their influences. A little rock, some rap, touches of ska and a large dose of reggae. They played a version of Jailhousea song by Bob Marley and the Wailers, one of the main guides of this band to the coastal city of Long Beach.
Jakob Nowell has had to fight the same battles as his father, who died of an overdose in a hotel in Phoenix (Arizona) when he was 11 months old. Nowell has battled addiction and has been sober for seven years. This Saturday he has easily filled the shoes of the father he never knew. He showed off his tattoos without a shirt and played the guitar with whom he calls his “uncles.” It has become one of the images of this Saturday. All of this took place as the sun set behind the mountains, in the final moments of the bright, golden light that fell on the polo field, where the festival takes place. The group closed the meeting with Santeria, his best-known song and the one that was highest on the charts. People screamed and asked for more songs, a difficult request to grant in the complicated logistics of festivals. The members hugged each other on stage and Jakob thanked: “I love you, dad. And I love each of you,” he told the audience.
The festival is being held this year with stricter security measures. The filters have been tightened and among the visitors there are canine teams and the presence of bomb squads from the local sheriff’s office. On the screens there are messages asking to report if something strange is seen. But this has not been enough to ruin the festive atmosphere. The presence of Taylor Swift and her boyfriend, the athlete Travis Kelce, was commented on by several attendees. The couple of the moment in the United States was seen in public during the Bleachers concert, the group of Jack Antonoff, Taylor’s producer and musical genius friend (who also played with Lana del Rey last night).
No Doubt who injected the energy into the night with their first concert since 2015. Gwen Stefani wanted to make it clear that she is in great shape. During the concert she started doing push-ups and climbed the metal tower where the stage lights were installed. At 54 years old, she was in charge of turning on the public and she did not stop for a second. She started with Hella Goodof the disk Rock Steady, that made everyone dance. It was a beginning that showed many of the hits that the group brought to the radio, in times before social networks. There was the Talk Talk cover, It’s my Life y Hey Babywith which Stefani was able to prove that she is still a great pop star on stage.
The Anaheim-based group bridged the gap with the younger generation midway through their set, when Stefani invited 21-year-old star Olivia Rodrigo on stage. The singer of Drivers License y Grammy winner has cited No Doubt in some interviews as one of her main sources of inspiration. Although somewhat nervous, she performed a single from 2000 with her idol, Bathwater. Then they did a cover of One Step Beyond, the ska classic from Madness. In case there are any doubts about who has influenced the group, bassist Tony Kanal played tonight, a sleeveless T-shirt from The Police.
Throughout the concert they projected on the screens home videos taken from when No Doubt took off towards the top. This was after the release of Tragic Kingdom in 1995, which became a classic of the decade. The last minutes were dedicated to three classics included on that album. In Just a Girl, Stefani made men and women sing separately. They all chanted together immediately after Don’t Speak, a topic that even made the younger ones stop and turn back, who were already beginning their long walk to another stage to see the French producer and DJ Gesaffelstein.
Blur could have added to the nostalgia of the nineties, although Damon Albarn chose a set that opted for the most recent songs of the London group, which has reunited and broken up several times since 2003. Seconds before singing Girls & Boysthe theme of Parklife (1994) which became one of Britpop’s best-known anthems, the 56-year-old frontman told attendees: “This is a song from the ’90s. We were there!”.
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