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| "Hello" photo by Cruz_Pompeii |
As I mentioned in my last entry, this is the week for concerts; last Friday I saw The Jayhawks at the Zoo, which was awesome. A nice intimate venue. Last night at the Xcel Energy Center with Adele was not quite as up close and intimate, but it was still one of the most amazing concerts I have seen. I have not attended a concert at 'The X' before, but I was worried the sound would be similar to Target Center, which would mean muddy sound. Cross that worry off of my list; the sound was really good. Then, I thought we would be late; traffic getting through St. Paul to meet my friends for dinner. We (my brother Cris and I) made it fine, and then had the most challenging dinner with the most inept server who actually called my friend "unprofessional" when she told him to just give us the checks (he would not stop talking about why he messed up). I thought, an unprofessional what? We finally made it to the parking ramp and it was about 7:17, and then show was set to start at 7:30. Ugh! Would we all make it? We did. The show started around 8:15, and I'm thinking they held it because it was taking a while for people to get settled. And, then, it started. Adele came up through the stage set up in the middle of the floor (we think we saw her being rolled in inside a case, seriously, but I just can't believe she would do that, but, perhaps) and the sounds of "Hello" came on and the crowd went Minnesota Wild. She was all alone on the stage, with the band hidden behind a screen/curtain back on the main stage. She walked back to main stage, through the crowd and did a couple more songs before starting to engage the crowd. Adele launched into "Hometown Glory" with scenes of London behind her, and THEN, it changed to scenes of the Mississippi River and St. Paul and the we went nuts. St. Paul is often neglected in favor of Minneapolis, so it was really nice to see those photos.
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| My Hometown, St. Paul Skyline, Cruz_Pompeii |
Adele brought out "Rumour Has It" early on, and the curtain was up on the band. I couldn't see the whole set up, but it looked like she had a string section, horn section, piano, percussionist, drummer, guitars, bass and back up singers. Adele drew heavily from her new album, "25", but was generous with the favorites from "19" and "21". She was even more generous with the stories behind the songs, whether it was about being a new mum, "Sweetest Devotion", the story about how she initially turned downed the opportunity to write the theme song for that certain James Bond movie "Skyfall". Adele two of the songs ("Don't You Remember" and "Someone Like You") that were co-written by Minneapolis native and the cheers were pretty loud, but honestly, that could have just been because of the songs and not the Minnesota connection.
Throughout the performance, Adele would launch into explanations of her songs or talk about what she did in the Twin Cities (she's a fan of Target, but not so much of our fried foods, but she did like the Mall of America), that she's a fan of Alison Krauss, to bringing four kids (I'm old, anyone under 30 is a kid) onstage just to chat and take selfies; in fact, Adele was so generous with posing for selfies, moving around the center stage so everyone could take a photo. I loved that she could crack herself up, and she is very self-aware, and by that I mean she knows who she is, she knows her fans paid a lot of money to see her and she is very appreciative of that, and she is aware that most of her songs are sad and depressing, but she laughed as she said it. I have been to a lot of concerts, big and small, and very few performers have interacted with their audience the way she did; Dar Williams comes to mind (they could write some good songs together, by the way). I read a review from an older performance that she really doesn't do much on stage, and even Adele has said she's not a real dancer/mover, and while that is true, the video clips and the lights and the background screen were the perfect complements to the songs. The best effects were saved for the end, the last song of the set was "Set Fire to the Rain", one of my favorite songs. She was on the middle stage, started singing and real water started coming down.
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| Set Fire To the Rain, Cruz_Pompeii |
