Oi, Mr. Stefani. Secretly (or not!), I very much enjoyed the ersatz grungiosity of Bush, back in ye olde '90s. You seem to make Gwen happy, and your two baby boys are adorable little nuggets (albeit with oddly irie names.)
However! Your performance last night on Conan actually scared my cat. I don't know how to explain to him why your rendition of "This Is Happiness" contained so many unsettling elements: flat-note singing; atonal band shifts; strange, Axl-meets-'NSync hip movements (my colleague Clark Collis calls it the "white man's sideways moonwalk").
Now, granted, I've seen a lot of musical gold turned to poo on a television stage; SNL, for one, is famous for blunting the power of many an expert live performer (this little Simpson excluded); but this is kind of awful, right? Tell me if I'm wrong, Music Mixers, or if you've seen much worse on the small screen:
Update: The clip has been removed, but you can still find it on Hulu, or in all its shuffle-shuffle-thrust glory here.
More from EW's Music Mix:
Mariah Carey's Eminem-dissing new single, 'Obsessed': Hear it here
New Weird Al: Is this the worst song you'll hear all week? (Maybe not!)
Gym Class Heroes, Rascall Flatts join Denny's Rock Star Menu; take that, Moons Over My Hammy!
Comments (1-20) of 20 Add your comment
AGREE he sounds flat and out of tune. The song is pretty blah to begin with, so his off key singing doesn’t help. Gavin needs to stop dancing! That shuffling and hopping around he does is just plain weird to watch.
Anybody who calls a kid ZUMA (like for real!) has to be pretty odd to begin with. Poor kid, if that’s not bad enough, to think he may also inherit his Dad’s weird to watch dance moves too LOL!!
It’s funny how one dance move can kill it for people..who cares get over it not everyone has rhythm like I am sure all of you do. I love this song off of this album and seeing it live at an actual concert makes it even better. Great job Gav…
I rarely enjoy the musical guests on late night shows but this was just on a different level. Usually I can tune it out but I had to leave the room for this one!
Oh my, Gavin does dance weird. I like his music, but that song sounded terrible live, his voice was really off, he’s out of tune or something.
Athena…yes it’s a good song off and you are obviously a fan (as I am too), but even being a fan, I can admit that Gavin did not sound great on the live version, at times the band drowned him out, at times he sounds awful and not in tune at all, sounds overall messy. Maybe an off night or no sound check was done. I think his shuffle dancing is cute though in an awful/nerdy way!
I just saw Gavin in concert a couple of weeks ago, and he sounded great. I think tv mix is often bad, and we’re all subject to an off night.
Sidenote – his opening band at the Denver show, Niko Vega, was absolutely terrible. Tragically bad.
Yeah…definitely not his best. Have seen him live a couple of times and really enjoyed him. Then that horrible INSTITUTE cd came out. I think it’s time for BUSH to reform.
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Strangely enough I was at the No Doubt concert last night, Gwen is the much better dancer of this couple! Having said that though, I still think Gavin is pure hotness. To me it sounded like his back up singers sucked, not him.
bandit yeah of course I am a fan…it wasnt a brilliant and excellent performance I didn’t say that, however Happiness live is amazing live maybe not on the tonight show but at a concert wow. A soundcheck was done.
he could sing this song at the top of his game and it’d still be incredibly lame. what god awful lyrics.
ehh…it wasn’t his best performance. Although, I must say I was at his concert in Vegas 2 wks ago, and he was GREAT live. He had so much energy, it made me tired!
the god part about any bad notes is that at least you know he isnt using auto tone or anything else to fix his voice… its really him! that deserves some credit.
The song itself was bad, and he sang it badly. The shimmy dance moves were ridiculous. I was embarrassed for the guy.
Sweet fancy Moses! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xi4O1yi6b0
I actually really dig this song and thought they rocked it pretty damn good. His voice sounded great to me, you guys are a bunch of pop lovin’ numbskulls.
It seems to me he is just doing what he always does (not much of a dancer) and this song is recorded somewhat flat, I thought it was a good performance of it. He’s a bundle of energy, isn’t he? Maybe it’s all the tennis- he’s shuffling like he’s trying to prepare for the ball to fly in any direction…
it was great writer of this topic, Gavin’s fans do not call him mr. stefani, we didn’t start it either, enough already, it’s lame, like your story, gavin is the best out there.
Wow.That was freakin awful.I’ve always kinda had a soft spot for ‘ol Gavin,but man .. Between the horrific song,weak vocals and so called dance moves,that was by far the worst I have seen … ever.And yes,that includes Axl at the 2002 Vma’s.Hell,at least Axl pulled off his signature moves and made “Madagascar” sound gorgeous.Gavin,stick with day care.
I have often dreamed of being Mrs. Rossdale, but that was truly painful.