Member Review: Adele

BPD loyalist Late Bloomer wrote:

Adele could initially be heard singing backstage while a spotlight shone on her pianist before she walked out to huge cheers from the audience.

By the next song, I’ll Be Waiting, her entire seven-piece band was revealed.

With a noted reluctance to play larger venues, she kept her surroundings as intimate as possible with Tiffany lamps and area rugs decorating her otherwise bare stage - no oversized video screens for her.

Backstage she confessed “I have no idea how to dance unless I’ve had quite a lot of vodka." She also told me that she and the band were out the night before doing karaoke and that they were all a bit hoarse. "My high notes probably won't match my high notes, if you know what I mean".

But her big, soulful voice was in good form, for the most part, despite a wayward note at the end of Turning Tables.

By the next song, Set Fire To the Rain, the audience got into the groove with a spirited clap-along, and afterwards she turned up the house lights so she could get a good look at everyone.

Adele, who sometimes sat on a stool, sometimes stood, occasionally with an acoustic guitar, does have a knack for connecting with her audience as she happily - perhaps nervously - chatted away in her thick, hard-to-understand accent between songs and let the occasional cackle rip.

She seems determined, despite her rising fame, to remain just one of the girls.

Adele’s disposition, look and voice definitely recalls another time.

Other musical highlights from her 80-minute set of songs from 21 and its 2008 predecessor, 19, included the driving Rumour Has It, the bouncy Right As Rain, the torchy ballad One and Only, and her breakthrough hit, Chasing Pavements.

Her eclectic, if well-chosen list of covers were If It Hadn’t Been For Love, by Nashville band The Steel Drivers, an excellent bossa nova take on Lovesong by The Cure, which is on 21, and a heartfelt rendition of Bob Dylan’s Make You Feel My Love, included on 19.

But everyone was waiting for her thrilling monster hit, from 21 - Rolling In The Deep - and had to wait for it to close the show after a beautiful rendering of the ballad, Someone Like You, in which she played acoustic guitar while accompanied by her piano player and the crowd, who sang along.

SET LIST:

Hometown Glory

I’ll Be Waiting

Don’t You Remember

Turning Tables

Set Fire to the Rain

If It Hadn’t Been for Love (The Steel Drivers cover)

My Same

Take It All

Rumour Has It

Right as Rain

One and Only

Lovesong (The Cure cover)

Chasing Pavements

Make You Feel My Love (Bob Dylan Cover)

ENCORE

Someone Like You

Rolling in the Deep

Thanks Late Bloomer. We always appreciate members writing in about their experiences.

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