Adele: I may quit playing live
ADELE has hinted that her latest tour could be her last.
After 15 months on the road, the singer told an audience at London’s Wembley Stadium that touring ‘doesn’t suit her’.
‘I might never see you again at a live show,’ she told the 98,000 fans. ‘Who knows? But I will remember this for the rest of my life.’
The 29-year-old also put a note in each programme on Wednesday, saying she was unsure if she would play her music to large audiences again. It read: ‘Touring is a pecu- liar thing, it doesn’t suit me particularly. I’m a real homebody and get so much joy in the small things.’
The Grammy award- winner, believed to be worth £125million, is reaching the end of a world tour which has taken her across Europe, America and Australia. It is her first in four years and she described it as ‘hard but an absolutely thrill’.
The mother- of- one added: ‘I’ve done 119 shows and these last four will take me up to 123. I wanted my final shows to be in London because I don’t know if I’ll ever tour again and so I want my last time to be at home.’
Adele, who was born in Tottenham and raised in south London, broke chart history in 2015 when her album 25 sold more than 800,000 copies in its first week.
But she promised she would continue to create music, saying on stage: ‘I will always write music and I will always put it out.’
BY HER own admission, Adele has never really taken to the rigours of touring.
A mercurial live performer who enjoys spending time at home with her husband, Simon, and young son, Angelo, she has suggested that her current tour, which ends on Sunday, will be her last.
If that’s the case, she’s going out in style. Wednesday night’s concert was the first of four hometown dates at Wembley Stadium, a venue where a younger Adele once watched the Spice Girls and George Michael.
And, in front of a 98,000 crowd, the largest since Wembley was rebuilt a decade ago, she reigned supreme.
Staged in the round, this two-hour show had all the bells and whistles of a big pop spectacular. There were video screens, fireworks, confetti and a plastic gun that fired signed T-shirts into the night sky.
But Adele’s greatest strengths have always been her chatty personality, bawdy humour and sensational voice — and those attributes eventually won the day.
‘I’ve never been so f***ing scared,’ said the singer, 29, as she took to the stage in a purple ballgown dotted with sequins.
‘I can hardly breathe, because I’ve put on weight since I took a break a few months ago.
‘I just want to eat takeaways and drink white wine, but I can’t do that when I’m trying to fit into a tour dress.’
With her band and backing singers barely visible beneath the stage, Adele began slowly, raising fears that the subtler nuances of her intensely personal songs might get lost in the splendour of the setting.
I’ll Be Waiting and I Miss You came and went. At one point, she even asked: ‘Are you still with me, Wembley?’
But, overcoming early nerves, Adele reiterated what a great soul singer she is.
It wasn’t just the hits that impressed, either. The countryish Don’t You Remember and gospel-influenced Take It All were brilliantly rendered heartbreak ballads. D edicating
her Bob Dylan cover Make You Feel My Love to the victims of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, she was close to tears as she made a heartfelt plea for donations to help the relief effort.
With thousands waving their smartphones in the air, an ultimately triumphant show ended in a mass singalong to Someone Like You.
As to when she’ll sing next, Adele wouldn’t tell. ‘On Sunday night, I’m going to go wild, smoke fags and drink whisky. By Monday, I’ll be solely a mum again — and I can’t wait.’
IF ADELE’S Wembley residency is being billed as The Finale, there’s little suggestion that Tony Bennett, 90, is thinking of taking a breather.
On Tuesday evening, the last of the great American crooners treated a spellbound Royal Albert Hall to a masterclass in the art of intimate singing.
Opening his UK tour with an 80-minute set, the King Of cool skipped elegantly through his own hits, plus covers from the golden age of song.
Having stayed true to his artistic vision regardless of changing fashion, Bennett inhabits these standards like no other living singer, instilling his songs with affection, gravitas and a sense of sheer joy.
Looking dapper in a navy suit and red pocket square — and backed by his nimble jazz quartet — the silver-haired new Yorker worked the room. He blew kisses, raised a glass (of water) during One For My Baby and shuffled briskly across the stage on The Shadow Of Your Smile.
His voice is in remarkable shape. He generated striking power on George Gershwin’s They All Laughed, and adopted a sweeter tone for his signature tune, I Left My Heart In San Francisco. Fly Me To The Moon was performed without the aid of a microphone.
Other highlights included a jaunty Steppin’ Out With My Baby and a take on For Once in My Life that transformed Stevie Wonder’s Motown hit into a jazz standard.
As he warmed to the occasion, Bennett loosened up. By the time he took a final curtain call by inviting his friend Dustin Hoffman on to the stage, the mood was celebratory. ‘ It’s great to be back in this magnificent country,’ he beamed. ‘I lived here for four or five years, and I don’t know why I left.’
When he cut his teeth at new York’s Paramount Theatre in the Forties, Bennett was told it would take him seven years to learn his profession. Seven decades later, it’s fair to say he’s mastered the craft.
Adele plays Wembley Stadium tomorrow and Sunday (adele.com). Tony Bennett continues his tour at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall tomorrow (ticketline.co.uk).