Gwen Stefani inspires devotion

I have a confession. I am a hollaback girl. At least for Gwen Stefani.

As enthusiastic thousands at White River Amphitheater Saturday night hollered back at Stefani's declaration that she "ain't no hollaback girl," it seemed apparent that Stefani's fans would do just about anything for her.

She's so likeable you can't help but want to please her. Yes, her lyric writing and sassy punk vibrato were better showcased as frontwoman of new wave ska band No Doubt. But her three years as a dance/pop solo act have cemented her headliner status.

She has the swagger and fashion sense to be on the Madonna track, but the platinum-blonde dynamo seems more sister than star--even while pulling out enough sparkly costumes, hip-hop choreography and multimedia effects to make the crowd scream like high school girls.

Admittedly, many of Stefani's fans are high school girls. And in her midriff-baring track pants and halter (one of eight costumes) the 37-year-old singer could almost pass for one of them. She even introduced "Wonderful Life" with, "this is about a boy I used to make out with in, um, high school."

But as Julie Andrews sings in Stefani's favorite musical (and inspiration for her latest hit "Wind It Up"), "The Sound of Music": "Let's start at the very beginning," which happened to be the second most exciting part of the evening.

Black out. Search lights throughout the audience. Giant screens framing the stage play video as an enormous "G" glows brightly. A prison cell rises from beneath the six-piece band's platform, and Stefani strikes a pose inside to start the title track from her new album "The Sweet Escape." The applause was deafening.

But the most thrilling part of the night involved very little fanfare. Near the end of the hour and a half set (which included only songs from her two solo releases), Stefani leapt into the crowd. She scaled fences and sprinted up stairs to get to the upper tier of audience where she sang "Cool" perched on a railing. The excitement and adoration in the venue was palpable, and when she told us we had to sing along, of course we did. How could you say no to Gwen?