adele

Adele warms the hearts of her rain-soaked audience at the start of her Munich residency.

The evening begins with surprises from above and below. When a few raindrops fall from the gigantic storm cloud above the pop-up stadium at the Munich trade fair shortly before eight, it looks as if things might turn out well. Shortly afterwards, however, a downright biblical torrential rain falls over the open-air arena, emphatically reminding each and every one of the 74,000 people in the audience that it is always a good idea to be prepared for all weather eventualities at such events.

Adele opened the evening with her hit “Hello”

Ten minutes later, the short but heavy shower is largely forgotten, because in the middle of the circular catwalk in the stalls, something big is about to happen. Enveloped by a second cloud, this time one made of artificial fog, Adele emerges from the ground in a navy blue evening dress with a meter-long train. She starts singing a song whose contrite first words are actually addressed to someone she once dumped. After eight years of being on stage on the European mainland, however, they fit so well into the concept that it seems as if they were written especially for this evening: “Hello, it’s me / I was wondering if after all these years you’d like to meet”.

It is the acclaimed start of a concert series, the gigantic dimensions of which are the crowning glory of an already gigantic Munich concert summer (including performances by Ed Sheeran at the European Championships fan festival and two by Taylor Swift in the Olympic Stadium). Ten Adele concerts within a month in a specially built stadium with a 200-meter-wide screen in the design of a film reel, surrounded by an Adele world also mostly in subtle black tones, between Bavarian folk festival coziness (Ferris wheel, beer garden, swing carousel) and British attractions such as the replica pub where it all began for Adele. Or a wine bar named after her song “I Drink Wine”: it doesn’t really get much more massive than that.

A look at the stage

So it’s no wonder that the evening’s protagonist, who struts across the rain-soaked footbridge without shoes, takes a sigh of relief after this first “Hello”, takes a sip of whatever from her clay “Adele Munich” beer mug – and after the enormous energy that she and her great eight-person band, including three backing singers, send out into the wide circle in the form of “Rumour Has It”, lets her soaked train be removed and reports with the greatest possible candor that she had underestimated her stage fright. “Fucking scared” she was at the beginning, Adele admits.

However, during this first concert she shows herself to be as confident in her voice as she is relaxed and approachable. At one point she puts a gay couple in the front row in the spotlight for a successful marriage proposal, at another she invites a happy little boy and his big sister on stage for a quick chat and a gift of merchandise. At another she shoots Adele shirts into the audience with a T-shirt cannon so much that you find yourself thinking, in a very German way, whether she could have played one or two more songs instead.

Ten Munich concerts by the British pop superstar are on the program.

Between practical tips on long-term alcohol consumption (“Always drink a glass of water in between!”) and sympathetic revelations about short-sightedness (“I could hardly see the ball during the European Championship semi-final in Dortmund!”), there is of course still enough time for a fine 20-piece set from across her career.

It is a great emotional and overwhelming experience when Adele makes her way through the arena with her backing singers to the rich, banging R’n’B of “Oh My God”. When a string orchestra spread out over the entire catwalk suddenly appears for her debut number “Hometown Glory”, which then enhances the exquisite, languishing “Love In The Dark” as well as the solemn Bond song “Skyfall” and the hymn-like “Fire To The Rain”. Or when she accompanies herself on the grand piano in “All I Ask” as a minimalist contrast, throwing herself into the bittersweet song with a verve that only a few can actually display in this brilliantly expressive soulfulness.

Tears for Adele in Munich

There’s no question that transforming the pain of separation and longing for someone, taken directly from her own life, into great songwriting art is still her speciality. This is never clearer than when, shortly before the end, she announces “Someone Like You”, completely distraught, a song that she wrote during a phase of severe depression, but which now gives her more joy live than almost any other.

Of course, an impressive stage show could not be missed.

And so this wonderful first of ten Munich concerts ends exactly there: in the painful harking back to days of happiness that Adele condenses just as elegantly in “Someone Like You” as in the final gospel hit “Rolling In The Deep”. “We could’ve had it all,” she sings, while her band once again brings out everything it has to offer in terms of intensity and at the same time a fireworks display rises above the arena. The pain of the missed opportunity has rarely sounded more beautiful and opulent than in this brilliant start to the Munich Adele celebrations.

Kevin Mazur Getty Images for AD

Kevin Mazur Getty Images for AD

Kevin Mazur Getty Images for AD

Kevin Mazur Getty Images for AD