★★★★☆
Just in case you were wondering whether the opening night of Adele’s 105-date tour was a big deal, the SSE Arena installed a merchandise stand outside the arena, for all those people waiting in the Northern Irish drizzle long before the doors opened.
Inside, anticipation was of the kind that only a 27-year-old whose album 25 has sold 15 million copies since November is capable of creating.
The backdrop: Adele’s closed, heavily made-up eyes, instantly recognisable. Then they opened and Adele popped up, surprisingly, in the middle of the arena floor. Not so surprisingly, she started with Hello, belting it out in a sparkling Burberry gown. It was a moment of theatre to make Barbra Streisand proud.
Adele is a phenomenon, but an unlikely one. Singing ballads of a distinctly traditional nature, the ones on 25 being much like ones that came before, she has a way of making small things seem remarkable. When she walked from the arena floor to the main stage along a little platform through the crowd, it was if she parted the Red Sea.
Her real skill is in bringing glamour to the everyday. Hometown Glory might be Adele’s ode to London, but she was smart enough to win Belfast over by singing it against a backdrop of the city’s skyline. The backdrop rose to reveal a large band and a rainy night in Belfast felt like Las Vegas, or at the very least Saturday night at the Palladium.
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“I’ve been s****ing myself,” said Adele, elaborating that she really had been suffering from an unfortunate toilet situation earlier that day. What’s more, her three-year-old had been acting up and to make matters worse her boyfriend had been stuck at Gatwick after an oil spillage.
It’s not easy to combine the spirit of the Wife of Bath with that of a Hollywood diva, but Adele managed it. “I’m a working mum. I keep forgetting to wipe my arse and shave my legs,” she said — holding a cup of tea — before reminiscing on pumping breast milk in the Ladies at the Oscars with Jennifer Garner.
Then she sang Skyfall, one of the most elegantly moody of all Bond themes. Broad domesticity met showbusiness, and Adele’s skill at creating intimacy yet a sense of occasion in even the largest spaces shone out.
There was much talk of being a mum, Sweetest Devotion being dedicated to her son, and then there was Someone Like You, Adele’s real masterpiece, and now belonging to the world enough for her the crowd to sing much of it without her help.
Such was the emotion that she asked for any woman to come up to the stage and propose to her boyfriend, since it’s a leap year. A woman did propose, and of course he said yes. Anything else would have meant death by 20,000 Adele fans.
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That’s Adele: putting on a big night out and making it seem like a deeply personal moment. “I love you, thank you,” she said, finishing with When We Were Young and, finally, Rolling In The Deep. And she sang in tune throughout. Truly, a diva for the people.