Hello, it’s me… you don’t know me Adele, but to me you are a little piece of heaven. I’ve been a fan since 21, but obviously have gone back to 19 as well. I was so excited when you finally announced your tour to Australia in November 2016. I was like ‘yes’ you are finally coming to visit and I am going to get to have this amazing experience of sharing the same space with you and having you bless my ears with your amazing voice. Unfortunately, when you decided to come I had just been put out of work, so I basically had no money, but I was still determined to put the tickets on my credit card. After a night to think about it I thought that wasn’t the wisest financial decision and I made the very difficult to decision to forgo the chance to see you. I didn’t try to get tickets. I simply tried to forget about you coming. I put it to the back of my mind, and tried to switch my ears off any time anyone like my sister-in-law talked about having tickets to your show.
Then we finally get to the end of February and you hit the country, and no matter what I do everyone is talking about you. I turn on the news and they report about the stage going up and the traffic congestion and the firework drama. I get sick of it and mute my TV anytime they talk about you, because it makes it all too real that you’re here and I’m not going to get to see you and hear your amazing voice. But I can’t seem to avoid the internet, and I read somewhere that you say you’re not going to tour again for 10 years, and now I’m truly crushed. I had accepted I wasn’t going to see you, but to accept not seeing you for 10 years is something I just really can’t cope with. I know people say it’s just a concert, but it’s so much more than just a concert. For me seeing you and hearing you sing the songs you have written that mean so much to me is like a spiritual experience. Anyway, back to the story, so I mention this sad fact to my mum, just in conversation, and think nothing more of it.
Then it comes to Sunday 5th March 2017, and I’ve been told that mum and I are getting picked up by our mutual friend, and we’re going somewhere. I think fine, that sounds nice, seems like a good thing to do on a Sunday afternoon. I jump in the car and my friend is blaring your music. I have a scowl on my face, because I am like ‘why are you torturing me?’, then to my absolute astonishment she whips out three pieces of paper and announces that we’re going to see you. My scowl turns to a bemused smile and I continue to question if she is for real. She promises she is and I just can’t believe it. I tell her she has made my year, and she seriously has. Seeing those tickets was the exciting thing ever!
So a few hours later, after an hour and half drive, and then a 40 min bus ride, and then a 10 min walk we make it inside the stadium. The first thing I see are your beautiful eyes lids up on the big screen. Now I sound like a stalker, but I seriously love your eyes, and only wish I could do my eye liner as immaculately as you do. I settle into my seat ready to while away the next two hours with some snaps of your amazing stage, and some people watching. Seven thirty comes and goes, but it’s alright because the word is that you don’t start until just before eight. The next sign I see that you’re here is a bunch of roadies and security of course, pushing this touring case out to the stage in the centre of the stadium. It’s clearly you making your way to the stage, because it’s big enough to house a human, and it goes out to the stage with security surrounding it, but comes back with only two people pushing it. I wonder if you’re scrunched up in the there, or if you’re sitting on a chair ready to be unmasked like a queen.
I wait some more, and then finally you say Hello and the beautiful eyes on the screen blink as the screen raises to reveal you standing alone on the cylindrical stage that towers above the ground. You look so isolated, but at the same time it’s like you’ve come to give us everything you have, and we’ve come to worship at your feet and take in every single word. It’s an amazing depiction of the power of your presence, and how you can command such a space and the attention and energy of so many people. The fact that we’re all here just for you, must be more overwhelming than I could ever begin to imagine, but you just seem to take it in your stride. Yes, you tell us that you’re nervous and that you seem to ramble and talk when you are nervous, but that just makes me love you even more.
As you walk across the stage and engage the audience, I am in awe of how beautiful you are and how glowing your smile is. It just lights up the place and brings such joy to me. Throughout the night you sing my most favourites songs including One and Only, Take It All, Make You Feel My Love, and Someone Like You, and when you sing I try to close my eyes to let your voice really wash over me, but I really struggle as your face is so animated and expressive when you sing that it’s hard not to be moved by that either. I sing along with you all night, which may or may not have bothered others, but whatever! As I sing my favourites One and Only and Take It All along with you, I can’t help but be taken back to what those songs mean to me, and how I dreamed of having them sung live in front of me, the multitude of times I heard them. I am in heaven listening to your voice. You make it appear so effortless, and all I can think of is how blessed you are to have that voice.
You close out the concert with Someone Like You, and to introduce this song you tell us about how you came to write the song. I love that you said you came to write the song as a way to make yourself feel better about yourself after feeling like nothing (I have had many a day when I have felt like nothing). You said that you wrote it to feel alive again, and to feel in control again of yourself, your abilities, and your feelings. I found this so inspiring because you once again reminded me that no matter how much people push me down and make me feel like nothing, I always have a way to take control of yourself, and in taking control of myself I have the opportunity to own my feelings and ultimately pick myself up and be better and stronger than ever. In this moment you reminded me that it’s okay to be myself, that I am good enough just as I am, and that it is okay to want the things others tell me are impossible to have.
After your finale of Someone Like You I watch you walk from the stage and back down the race, disappearing from my sight and from my life again, perhaps for 10 years. But as I walk out of the stadium, I feel renewed and energised, and as though I am okay to wait that long before I see you again.