Photo by Morne de Klerk/Getty Images
British singer-songwriter Adele hit Australian shores for the first time this month. Her only Adelaide concert is set to break records, with over 70,000 people packing Adelaide Oval on a beautiful Monday night. It is a tribute to her wide appeal that the audience contained people in their eighties, and quite young children, along with everyone in between.
Stage set-up being in the round ensured that everyone got a good view of their idol, and Adele made sure to move around the circular cat-walk as much as possible. Her personality is impossible to dislike: she is warm, down-to-earth and personable, and so able to make a stadium experience feel remarkably cosy.
Opening with Hello, she moved into a packed night of songs including the ever-popular Someone Like You, Don’t You Remember and the uber-power-ballad, Fire to the Rain. Her only cover number for the night was Bob Dylan’s Make You Feel My Love, for which she had the lights turned down, and encouraged the crowd to turn on their cell-phone flash-lights. This was certainly a moving and beautiful moment, and one which stadium gigs are made for. It was just disappointing that her excellent musicians and back-up singers, were below her, rather than on the same level, so we really only got to see them from the occasional shot on the screen.
Along with lots of humorous chatter in between numbers, Adele was able to talk to individual members of the audience, pose for a couple of selfies, and even pay a young girl the $20 she lost in a bet (the bet was that she couldn’t stop swearing…which she couldn’t!).
There is no doubting this woman’s talent: her voice is sonorous and exact; her songs are pop-perfection. Adding to the fun of the night were gimmicks such as balloons, confetti, flash-pots, a kiss-cam and Adele herself firing t-shirts out into the audience from an air-cannon.
The night finished with the compulsory Rolling in the Deep, accompanied by a barrage of smoke machines.
As the crowd filed out (slowly), to wend their way home, there was a sense that everyone felt that they’d had value for their money.
After the success of this tour, I think that Adele will be returning to Australia again soon.
She came, she sang, she conquered.
By Tracey Korsten
http://www.adelaideoval.com.au/
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