Seeing Stefani Is Believing

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NO DOUBT

“Live in the Tragic Kingdom,” Interscope

No Doubt’s doubters may dismiss the commercially huge band as little more than a faddish gimmick, but credit these O.C.-based leaders of the bubbly ska-pop pack with having made a fairly gimmick-free concert video.

Culled from a two-night hometown stand in the spring at the Pond of Anaheim, “Live in the Tragic Kingdom,” scheduled for release today, straightforwardly captures No Doubt’s band-on-the-run energy and Gwen Stefani’s marvelous features and hammy trouper’s ethic. It’s sparing with the cliched slow-motion effects and dizzying pan-the-house crowd shots and resists the temptation to cut from the dazzling Stefani (coiffed here as a tangly haired Medusa redeemed by blond beauty) to her legions of Gwen Girl fashion followers.

Mainly, director Sophie Muller, who shot three of No Doubt’s MTV videos, gives us the view we’d have if we watched the show from flat on our backs beside the stage-front monitors. Lots of extreme Gwen close-ups, of course, resplendent with perfect, sweat-impervious makeup; if nothing else, “Live in the Tragic Kingdom” proves that while the Stefani navel makes for a good conversation piece and fashion hook, it’s her face that makes her a star--both for its beauty and for her ability to mug like Lucille Ball in comic moments or to look like a tragically winsome old-time leading lady during her big heartbreak ballad, “Don’t Speak.”

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Playing on a stage set that’s festively spooky--a Halloween haunted forest of blasted trees hung with bright lights and inflated balls that resemble Christmas ornaments--No Doubt begins the show badly with three of the most plodding or least catchy songs from its “Tragic Kingdom” album. But the good stuff outweighs the bad as the concert proceeds, highlighted by a humorously cantankerous “Just a Girl,” with Stefani doing her salty, profane rabble-rouser routine, and an acoustic reading of “Hey You” that’s the only major musical departure from album versions of the band’s repertoire.

Apart from the draggy opening and the even draggier Queen-goes-to-Strawberry-Fields dirge, “The Climb,” which adds dead weight just as things are picking up, the playing is brisk, sharp and light-footed, with Stefani presiding as the fun-loving but feisty ringleader. A girl, all right, but not just a girl, especially when she is onstage and in front of a zoom lens.

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Ratings range from * (poor) to **** (excellent), with three stars denoting a solid recommendation.