Audience warms up to fake Adele
“What? You’re reviewing a tribute concert?” asked my city editor.
Well, Katie Markham was hand-picked by Adele herself for Graham Norton’s BBC Adele Special where she met the star and sang with Adele on stage. As a result, Markham was asked to headline Someone Like You: The Adele Songbook.
The result: sold-old theatres throughout the U.K. for the former X Factor UK finalist. In true British fashion, Adele described the touring show in one word: “Brilliant.”
So expectations were high Tuesday night at Kelowna Community Theatre. The reality: less than one-half of the theatre’s 853 seats were occupied, mostly by older patrons, most of them female.
The stage was set with a brief video documenting the phenomenal rise to stardom by Adele Laurie Blue Adkins born on May 5, 1988, her three albums related to her ascending age selling more than 100 million world-wide in only 10 years.
A ghostly monitor image then echoed “Hello” several times, sending shivers down the spine of every Adele fan. The distinctive piano introduction to the lead single from her third album, 25, became the first song in the U.S. to sell over one million digital copies within a week of its release.
Markham then strolled on-stage in a fulllength, black-and-shimmering-gold Adele-style dress, Adele-style hair and eyelashes, and characteristic Adele arm and hand movements.
It was as if the former student at the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology had majored in the Adele Studies program. Her research was impeccable.
The initial audience reaction was lukewarm, Adele’s husky voice versus Markham’s higherpitched vocals. Hello was followed by the lesserknown numbers Cold Shoulder and Right As Rain. However, the atmosphere warmed with Hometown Glory (written when she was 16), Chasing Pavements, Make You Feel My Love, Send My Love, Take It All and climaxed with the foot-stomping, beat-heavy Rumour Has It to end the first half.
The theatre was buzzing with comments like: “She looks just like Adele” and “Amazing.” And especially: “It’s too bad she didn’t get a bigger crowd.”
Markham launched into the second half by encouraging everyone to clap in unison and then brought the house down with Set Fire To The Rain, one of three simultaneous top 10 singles from the album 21.
This barn-burner was followed by I’ll Be Waiting, the sentimental I Can’t Make You Love Me (Bonnie Raitt), All I Ask and When We Were Young.
Pianist and musical director Liam Holmes set the stage for the highlight of the second half, a hand-blurring medley of James Bond movie themes leading into a bombastic Skyfall which won Adele an Academy Award, a Grammy Award and a Golden Globe Award.
The encore was the much-anticipated, signature song Someone Like You, the theme of Markham’s touring show and a double-entendre since she is so much like Adele.
By this time, the audience was fully committed to lustily singing the chorus.
The climax, though, was the rollicking Rolling In The Deep which followed a standing ovation.
The repeating line, “We could have had it all” said it all. Audience members were smiling and laughing as they left the theatre after having had it all.