Out of all the footage I saw from Coachella this weekend, the most exciting to me was Gwen Stefani and No Doubt. That is generational, I’m sure. No Doubt came up when I was growing up. I will know those songs forever. But also it’s about staying power, it’s about being able to, or rather, STILL being able to. How many of these young acts who played Coachella this weekend will we see in 25 years at whatever the Coachella will be in the future? 

 

Gwen Stefani, at 54, just became the oldest woman to headline Coachella. And when I say headline, I mean she was doing it with as much energy, and charisma, and stage presence as she was back in the day. Because she still can. 

 

Did you see those videos of her climbing up that scaffold?! 

 

Is it just people my age who got emotional when this happened? (More on this in a minute.) 

 

For the uninitiated, if you’re wondering why she was doing push-ups at one point… well… again… because she still can. 

 

It was like no time had passed whatsoever. And it was basically the entire f-cking time she was on stage. 

 

So when she was joined onstage by her spiritual successor Olivia Rodrigo, well, it was like they were contemporaries, and not separated by two generations. 

It was cute how Gwen called her a “little vampire”. But it’s even cuter how cute Gwen looks in alllll her signature patterns and cuts. The plaid. The crop. The fishnet. The belts. The sport shorts. It was all there, and so were her bandmates, together for the first time on stage in a decade. And conveniently just as today, we mark the 28th anniversary of one of their most forever songs. It was in 1996 when this became a breakup anthem for the ages.