Saturday evening just before 8 o'clock and the box office is controlled chaos: velvet ropes corralling will-call patrons while scalpers unabashedly solicit fans hoping to score a last-minute seat. The crowd's diversity is striking as a platinum blonde party girl surveys the swarm while a soccer mom and her preteen daughter hold hands among boys and girls in matching Sadie Hawkins outfits who scoff at the idea of an escort.
Inside, Ciara, her dancers and DJ try to elicit a response from the crowd still searching for their seats, toting drinks, chatting on cell phones, and hardly inclined to "get crunk" with their "girl from the ATL." Everyone is here to see Gwen Stefani.
The roar of excitement overpowers anticipatory shrieks as the stage falls dark amid the faint murmurings of kabuki music. The curtain rises to reveal a tiered stage, each step covered in animated LEDs that spell out "Harajuku Lovers" as Gwen rises from below, Harajuku Girls in tow.
The first bars of "Harajuku Girls" are barely audible above the cacophony and the audience is thrilled to see Stefani strut down the stage in her Alice-in-Wonderland-if-she-were-a-pin-up-pirate ensemble, replete with white-gartered stockings and S&M maryjanes. The Harajuku Girls break their robotronic baby-doll poses to flutter around Stefani as she belts out her praise for their "wicked style."
Each song has a unique theme and plenty of costume changes while a massive projection screen behind the stage sets the mood, with colorful content that runs in concert with the LED-filled levels. "The Real Thing" has the crowd clapping along to Stefani's pitch-perfect vocals as she bounds about in her retro polka-dot swimsuit. Break-dancing boys fill the transitions with a symbolic chasing of Wonderland's white rabbit and carnivalesque hip-hop moves.
"Cool" is simply Stefani in a besparkled gown, glittering seascape behind and her fans singing out the "cool" part unprompted. Manned cameras in the scaffolds capture Gwen's every expression and follow her energetic performance as she prompts a call-and-response to her "Crash" chorus, remarks on her unusually close proximity to the audience, and climbs the stage to introduce her band. "Long Way To Go" takes a more somber note, with black-and-white footage reminiscent of Madonna's Truth or Dare imagery.
Closing with a drum-line encore of "Hollaback Girl" and surrounded by high-schoolers brought onstage, the 30th show of the tour that Stefani mocks "was never supposed to happen" embodied all we've come to expect from our "Orange County girl."