Music

Monday Music :Adele : in concert, the queen of hearts

If you want a great live concert experience go see someone who has:
a. Talent
b. An incredible back catalogue which they are still prepared to perform with the respect the classic songs deserve.
c. An understanding that a great show is not simply blinding your audience with sensory overload because you are bereft of the first two things
d. An ability to interact with the audience in a way that suggests they do actually value the people who have paid large sums of money to come see them.

Adele’s back catalogue is not yet of the calibre of a Barry Gibb, Fleetwood Mac or The Eagles (to name just three of the best live acts I have seen in the past few years). As she herself points out; she’s only released three albums. However, she has everything else in abundance.
She is currently playing sell out shows across the UK. Apparently, an estimated 10 million fans tried desperately to get tickets. A small percentage succeeded. Being me, I managed to get a normal ticket and a VIP package one. These things just happen to me, okay. I’m sorry.
Media reports suggest that some saps have been paying up to £25,000 for the chance to weep along to Someone Like You. While that would be a perfectly acceptable sum to see a resurrected Lennon, Bowie, Gaye, Jackson or an Abba reunion, it might just be out of most people’s reach for a show they will be able to see clips of on YouTube.
Nevertheless, Adele from Tottenham is worth every penny of any ticket price and then some.
That voice!
It pierces your heart with every number.
That personality!
Every single person the 20,000 strong crowd surely walked out of the O2 convinced Adele is their best friend and theirs only.
That human touch!
Adele is a fan herself. She knows what fans want and she delivers accordingly: the hits, the better album tracks, the stories behind the songs, the banter, the acknowledgment of those who love her and yes, even the selfies.
She is a fabulous ‘night out’.
The new album 25 may not have the emotional punch of the gazillion selling 21 but sung live the fresher songs fill the arena just as well as the ones everyone from 9 to 90 can sing along to.
While my younger self cannot quite accept that the official queen of pop, Madonna, is increasingly a shadow of her former glorious self, I can certainly acknowledge that Adele is the queen of people’s hearts. Long may she reign.

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