Adele has opened up about her scrapped Las Vegas concerts, admitting the show she had planned was lacking in “soul”.
Earlier this year, the chart-topping star shared a tearful video on social media, explaining to fans that she was postponing her Weekends With Adele residency a night before she was due to go on stage.
The Grammy-winning musician was met with something of a backlash to the announcement, telling Elle in a new interview: “It was the worst moment in my career, by far. By far. I was so excited about those shows. It was devastating.”
At the time, Adele said the shows had to be postponed due to “delivery delays” and members of her team being struck down with Covid, admitting in her video: “My show ain’t ready.”
In her Elle interview, Adele opened up more about why she felt the show was not fit to be seen by fans.
“There was just no soul in it,” she explained. “The stage setup wasn’t right. It was very disconnected from me and my band, and it lacked intimacy.
“And maybe I tried too hard to give it those things in such a controlled environment.”
Speaking about the response, Adele revealed she “went into hiding” and deleted her private Twitter account due to the criticism.
She said: “The first couple of months was really, really hard. I was embarrassed. But it actually made my confidence in myself grow, because it was a very brave thing to do.
“And I don’t think many people would have done what I did. I’m very proud of myself for standing by my artistic needs.”
Adele told Elle that a main issue with the show was the mammoth size of the stage, recalling a much-reported water feature “looked great for a couple of songs, and then didn’t do anything. It was just there”.
With the residency set to finally begin in November, Adele said she got around this obstacle by using a framing device to “treat it like a puppet stage”.
On what she’s got planned for the revamped shows, Adele said: “I want to tell the story of the beginning of my career to now. I’m not gonna give too much about it, but the show grows. The show grows.
“It’s all about the music, and it’s really, really nostalgic. It’s gonna be really beautiful.”
“I think I’m right to do it right now,” she added. “I know I’m not, like, 60 years old and I haven’t got 20 albums under my belt. But I think my music will work in a show in Vegas.”
Last month, Adele admitted that the controversy surrounding her Las Vegas show postponement had left her feeling like a “shell of a person”.
“I was frightened about letting [the fans] down and I thought I could pull it together and make it work, and I couldn’t,” the Someone Like You singer said.
“It was horrible and the reaction was brutal. I was a shell of a person for a couple of months.”
The October issue of Elle UK is on sale from September 1.
