Last night Gwen Stefani made her “Sweet Escape Tour” stop in San Diego.  It was truly a special event because all the proceeds from the show were donated to the victims of the recent San Diego fires.

This is the first concert that I’ve gone to in 5 or 6 years since I went to see Bjork’s Vespertine Tour when it came to the Hollywood Bowl.  At that time I thought it was pretty cool that Bjork introduced her system administrator as part of the band ;p.  This time, the experience was very different because the glow of cigarette lighters and the like were replaced with the glow of digital camera and cell phone screens.  Wow!  I forgot to bring my camera (I was so sad), but I’d say nearly everyone else in the arena had some so sort of way of taking a digital image or video.  This was truly amazing because recording is not always allowed at concerts.

I think the show lasted about 1.5 hours (we missed Sean Kingston, the opening act — we were not very sad about that) and within in that 90-minutes, there was lots of singing, dancing, costume changes, set changes, and direct interaction with audience.  Gwen Stephani really puts on a good show.  It was also nice that she left the dancing to her dancers so she could concentrate on singing (Her dancers were really good.  It was obvious that some of them were former gymnasts).  The show itself was very audience participatory.  We were encouraged to get on our feet to dance and sing.  I’m a sucker for a sing-a-long and bass, so I had a really good time singing and doing my little Jen-dance.  I sung my voice out by the end of the concert and I’m still feeling the effects of the loud singing today.