Adele Live was the second concert tour by English singer-songwriter
Adele
Adele Laurie Blue Adkins (; born 5 May 1988) is an English singer-songwriter. Regarded as a British cultural icon, icon, she is known for her mezzo-soprano vocals and sentimental songwriting. List of awards and nominations received by Adele, ...
. She visited Europe and North America, the tour supporting her second studio album, ''
21''. Adele was backed by a five-piece band and backing singers. The setlist comprised all of her songs from ''21'', except for "He Won't Go", as well as selected songs from ''19''. The shows garnered positive critical reviews, many of which emphasised the show's understated, “unplugged” nature, as well as the singer's vocal performance and accessible persona.
Recurring health and vocal problems led to numerous adjustments and postponements to the tour itinerary. The first European leg of the tour was uninterrupted, however. For the first North American leg (which was originally scheduled to begin 12 May 2011 in Washington, D.C. and end on 22 June in Minneapolis), Adele canceled the last nine dates after she was diagnosed with acute
laryngitis.
These dates were rescheduled with some additional dates and some larger venues. The tour was sold out quickly across North America and Europe, and received positive reviews.
In September 2011, "continuing problems with a serious cold and chest infection" prompted the further postponement of seven additional dates on the second leg of the European stop. However, the tour was resumed on 13 September, and new dates for the missed shows were rescheduled. In October 2011, the singer again cancelled the remaining dates of the second leg of her North American tour—this time due to a vocal
hemorrhage
Bleeding, hemorrhage, haemorrhage or blood loss, is blood escaping from the circulatory system from damaged blood vessels. Bleeding can occur internally, or externally either through a natural opening such as the mouth, nose, ear, urethra, ...
that caused internal bleeding near her
vocal cords
In humans, the vocal cords, also known as vocal folds, are folds of throat tissues that are key in creating sounds through Speech, vocalization. The length of the vocal cords affects the pitch of voice, similar to a violin string. Open when brea ...
. Adele was forced to cancel the remaining dates of her tour to undergo emergency surgery for the throat hemorrhaging.
Background
Production designer Rob Sinclair wanted the stage to be sparse so the audience would focus on Adele and her voice. The back wall of the stage featured a "distinctive" wall of 96 cone-shaped lampshades using 60-watt household lightbulbs to illuminate them. Each lamp was individually dimmed and the bulbs of each lamp were dipped in a special rubber solution so they wouldn't break. The rest of the show featured moving lights and much white light to focus on Adele at the center of the stage. The moving lights were designed so that they didn't appear to move from the audience's point-of-view and were powered by Jands Vista's next-generation Vista v2 software. The decision to focus on sculpted white light for the stage won "considerable acclaim."
The tour was minimalist in every aspect, from stage design to using each venue's own sound system rather than transporting a tour-specific system. The front-of-house engineer for the tour was Dave McDonald. McDonald carried an
Allen & Heath iLive-112 with him during the tour and hooked it up to each venue's sound system with a Cat 5 connector. This allowed the tour to travel light and allowed McDonald to control the mix for each show using each venue's systems. McDonald used plug-ins to replicate the sound of vintage ENT plates for the sound. The tour chose to only use
Sennheiser microphones. McDonald chose to have Adele use a wireless Sennheiser SKM 2000 system with an SKM 500–965 G3 transmitter. For the back-up singers, McDonald chose hardwired Sennheiser e 935s. The guitarists used Avalon DIs and the piano was a "gag piano", lacquered upright to look traditional but actually housed a
Yamaha MO The Yamaha MO6/MO8 is a music production synthesizer that comes in two sizes. The MO6 is the 61-key while the MO8 is the 88 weighted key version. The two versions use Yamaha's AWM2 (Advanced Wave Memory 2) tone generator also used in the Motif and t ...
. McDonald's goal for the tour was, "I want the audience to forget who they are for a moment and be able to project themselves solely onto what's occurring onstage. That is, after all, why we go to shows."
The tour featured a 12-piece string section that backed Adele up, consisting of eight violins, two violas, and two cellos. During some performances, a 20-ft mirrorball (named "Mirrorball Mike") descended from the ceiling during the encore. A screen lifted up at the beginning of the concert to reveal Adele and occasionally descended behind her with images projected upon it. During "Hometown Glory", an image of
St. Paul's Cathedral was projected onto the screen.
Opening acts
*
The Civil Wars (North America, leg 1, select dates and United Kingdom, leg 2)
*
Plan B (North America, leg 1, select dates)
*
Wanda Jackson
Wanda LaVonne Jackson (born October 20, 1937) is an American retired singer and songwriter. Since the 1950s, she has recorded and released music in the genres of Rock music, rock, Country music, country and Gospel music, gospel. She was among th ...
(North America, leg 2, select dates)
*
Amos Lee (United Kingdom, leg 2)
*
Michael Kiwanuka (United Kingdom, leg 2)
Setlist

# "
Hometown Glory"
# "I'll Be Waiting"
# "Don't You Remember"
# "
Turning Tables"
# "
Set Fire to the Rain"
# "Daydreamer"
# "If It Hadn't Been for Love"
# "
My Same"
# "Take It All"
# "
Rumour Has It"
# "Right as Rain"
# "One and Only"
# "
Lovesong"
# "
Chasing Pavements
"Chasing Pavements" is a song recorded by English singer-songwriter Adele Adkins for her debut studio album, '' 19'' (2008). Written by Adele with her producer Francis White, the song was released as the second single from the album on 14 Ja ...
"
# "
Make You Feel My Love
"Make You Feel My Love", also known as "To Make You Feel My Love", is a song written by Bob Dylan for his album '' Time Out of Mind'', released in September 1997. It was first released commercially in August 1997 by Billy Joel for his compilation ...
"
#;Encore
#
" Someone like You"
#
" Rolling in the Deep"
Source:
Notes
Shows
;Festivals and other miscellaneous performances
:This concert was a part of the
London Pride
:This concert was a part of the
iTunes Festival
Cancellations and rescheduled shows
Box office score data
Broadcasts and recordings
The concert at The Roundhouse (a part of the
iTunes Festival) was streamed live on iTunes. The event was followed with an
EP release entitled ''
iTunes Festival: London 2011''. The album showcases an abbreviated concert with the songs; "One and Only", "Don't You Remember", "Rumour Has It", "Take It All", "I Can't Make You Love Me" and "Rolling in the Deep". The album is an iTunes exclusive and was made available for download on 14 July 2011. A
DVD/
Blu-ray
Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
/
CD entitled ''
Live at the Royal Albert Hall'' was released on 28 November 2011. It features the entire concert along with behind the scenes footage.
Personnel
* Adele: Vocals, guitar on "Daydreamer" and occasionally "My Same"
* Ben Thomas: Guitar
* Tim Van Der Kuil: Guitar
* Miles Robertson: Keyboards
*
Sam Dixon: Bass guitar
* Derrick Wright: Drums
* Kelli-Leigh Henry-Davila, Sharleen Linton: Background vocals
* David "Zop" Yard: Tour manager
* Pat Baker: Production manager
* Rob Sinclair: Production designer
* George Sinclair: Associate designer
* Dave McDonald: Front-of-house engineer
* Joe Campbell: Monitor engineer
* Adam Newman & Adam Carr: Stage techs
Source
Adele's Official Myspaceh1>
Accolades
!
, -
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, rowspan="1" , Adele
, 23rd
Pollstar
''Pollstar'' is a trade publication for the concert and live music industry. The publication was purchased by Oak View Group, a venue consultancy founded by Tim Leiweke and Irving Azoff, in July 2017.
''Pollstar'' holds an annual award ce ...
Awards - Best New Touring Artist
,
, rowspan="1" style="text-align:center;",
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Adele Live
2011 concert tours
Adele concert tours