Let's Compare Scenes: No Doubt Performances

One band, two teen dramas, two different decades (kinda).

No Doubt performed on “Dawson’s Creek” in 2002 and on “Gossip Girl” in 2009.

So, how were these in two different decades? Well, the “Gossip Girl” performance was actually set in the 1980s.

But what really makes this notable to me is how rare it is for two teen dramas to feature a performance by the same musical act.

Let’s take a look back at how it all unfolded…

Dawson’s Creek

Episode 6.08, “Spiderwebs”

In an episode that shares its name with a No Doubt song, Dawson gets tickets for the gang to attend a No Doubt concert, but things don’t go as planned for virtually anyone. Dawson and Natasha show up on the wrong night, Joey and Eddie forget their tickets, and a subtly brewing Pacey-Audrey-CJ-Jen quadrangle comes to a head with a fistfight at the venue.

No Doubt is seen performing several tracks during their real-life Worcester concert, but while the “Dawson’s Creek” crew went on location in Massachusetts to film the concert, all of the cast’s scenes were shot in North Carolina as normal. Thanks to the magic of editing, the footage was spliced together to make it look like everything was filmed at the same place, at the same time. The episode was directed by Bethany Rooney, who was also a director for “Beverly Hills, 90210,” “One Tree Hill,” and “90210.”

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Gossip Girl

Episode 2.24, “Valley Girls”

During a tense time between Lily and Serena (what else is new?), Lily’s present-day clashes with her own mother CeCe prompt her to flashback to her teen years. Specifically, Lily recalls being in Los Angeles after getting kicked out of boarding school. While searching for her sister, she ends up at a No Doubt show, although it isn’t actually No Doubt because this is 1983 and the real-life band didn’t form until 1986. Instead, the group is called Snowed Out and they perform a cover of “Stand and Deliver” by Adam and the Ants.

More significant than No Doubt’s appearance is the fact that this episode was intended to serve as a backdoor pilot for a would-be “Gossip Girl” spinoff that was never picked up to series. The episode was helmed by Mark Piznarski, who also directed for “90210.”

Besides the different decades the No Doubt performances take place in, another difference is that the band only performed one song in the “Gossip Girl” episode but three in the “Dawson’s Creek” episode. Furthermore, they weren’t performing their own music or appearing as themselves in the “Gossip Girl” one. Also, while No Doubt’s “Dawson’s Creek” appearance made my list of the Top 10 Musical Guests, you won’t find the group’s “Gossip Girl” appearance on there because I wrote that months before it aired (and more than a month before it was even announced).

As infrequent as it is to have the same music act on two of our teen dramas, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention perhaps an even more noteworthy example: The Goo Goo Dolls performed on the season 6 finale of “Beverly Hills, 90210” in 1996 (as discussed during my first appearance on “The Beverly Hills 90210 Show”) and then on the series finale of “90210” almost 17 years later in 2013.

More evidence that it’s a small teen drama world after all.

Want to see more teen drama comparisons? See which shows had baby sisters named Lily, earthquake and hurricane episodes, farewell videos, throwback episodes, Breakfast Club-inspired episodes, and sweat lodge experiences.