An emotional Adele said she was “so happy” to be back playing for her home crowd as she fought back tears while performing her first UK live show in five years.
The singer headlined the first of two nights at British Summertime festival in London’s Hyde Park on Friday, where she treated the sold-out crowd to array of hits from across her four number one albums.
Taking to the stage, Adele became overwhelmed as she sang the opening lyrics to her hit Hello.
Choking up, she stopped singing and remarked: “I’m so happy to be here,” before asking the crowd to help her with the vocals.
She later said: “Guys, I’m back at home, also where I know. The amount of times I have been up there drunk off of my face, singing along to other artists at these shows.”
She added that she was “thrilled” to be back on stage but that she found it “strange to be in front of a crowd again”, which included her son and one of her best friends.
Hollywood actors Tom Cruise and Luke Evans, Gavin & Stacey star James Corden and former One Direction singer Niall Horan were also in attendance.
During the two-hour set she performed classics tracks and new hits including Rumour Has It, One and Only, To Make You Feel My Love, Rolling In the Deep and Easy On Me.
Adele also stopped her performance of Bond theme Skyfall to help a fan in need of assistance, calling for security.
To close the show, Adele sang Love Is A Game accompanied by a spectacle of fireworks as she told the crowd: “I love you so much London.”
Ahead of her last song, she appeared to refer to the last-minute postponement of her Las Vegas residency earlier this year.
“I know that a lot of things have happened with this album and I’m sure a lot of you feel that you’ve been let down and stuff, which is mortifying really and upsetting to me,” she said.
“But I take my singing very seriously and the last thing I would ever want to do is let people down but I had to do that, it just wasn’t right.”
Adele pulled the plug on the US dates at the last minute in January due to the show not being ready.
In an interview on The Graham Norton Show the following month, she said she is “working her arse off” to reschedule the dates, and that it will “100% happen this year”.