Singer Adele wowed crowds over the weekend in her first public concert in five years, stopping the BST Hyde Park Festival in London event multiple times to help out distressed fans.
Even as she performed a number of her hit tracks, the singer’s concert came hot on the heels of an intimate interview with the BBC Radio 4 where she admitted that she felt like “a shell of a person for a couple of months” after unexpectedly cancelling her ‘Weekends With Adele’ Las Vegas residency just days before it was supposed to begin in January.
In the interview, the singer admitted to feeling awful about upsetting fans who had spent thousands of dollars to attend. “I suppose I simply had to wait it out and really grieve it, just lament the shows and get over the guilt,” Adele explained.
Adele originally revealed the news of the cancellations in an Instagram video, telling supporters that dates will be rescheduled with more information to follow.
She told BBC anchor Lauren Laverne that she needed to cope with the fallout from the cancelled event privately, acknowledging that “the show was not good enough. I’m not sure if my quiet was lethal. But it was dreadful.”
Despite her feelings for the fans, Adele remarked that she did not regret the choice to end the residency, even though “I absolutely felt everyone’s sorrow and I was saddened, and I was afraid of letting them down. I had hoped to put it all together and make it work, but I couldn’t. I stand by my decision... I’m not going to perform a concert simply because I have to, or because people will be disappointed, or because we’ll lose a lot of money.”
Adele did, however, mention the possibility of altering her US tour itinerary during her performance at Hyde Park, suggesting that new dates might be announced “very, very soon.”
“I had concerts that I was meant to do, but they didn’t happen,” she explained at the live event. “All I need is one piece of equipment.”
Adele’s debut at the BST Hyde Park Festival in London was her first public performance in five years. The two-hour show included songs from her most recent album ‘30,’ as well as favourites such as ‘Rumour Has It’ and ‘Rolling in the Deep.’
