Adele Live
| Tour by Adele | |
Promotional poster for the tour
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| Associated album | 21 |
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| Start date | 21 March 2011 |
| End date | 25 September 2011 |
| Legs | 4 |
| No. of shows | 31 in Europe 20 in North America 51 in total |
| Attendance | 111,874 |
| Box office | $2 million (10 shows) |
| Adele concert chronology | |
Adele Live was the second concert tour by British recording artist Adele. Visiting Europe and North America, the tour supported her second studio album, 21. Adele was backed by a five-piece band and backing singers, whilst for some songs she was accompanied by piano only. The setlist comprised all songs from 21, except for "He Won't Go", as well as selected songs from 19. The shows garnered positive critical reviews, many of which emphasised the show's understated nature, as well as the singer's vocal performance and accessible persona.
Recurring health and vocal problems led to numerous alterations to the tour itinerary. The first European leg of the tour was uninterrupted. However, for the first North American leg, which was originally scheduled from 12 May 2011 in Washington, D.C. to 22 June in Minneapolis, Adele canceled the last nine dates of her tour after she was diagnosed with acute laryngitis. These dates were rescheduled with some additional dates and some larger venues. The tour was sold out quickly across North America and Europe, and received positive reviews.
In September 2011, "continuing problems with a serious cold and chest infection" prompted the postponement of seven additional dates on the second leg of the European stop. However, the tour was resumed on 13 September, and new dates for the missed shows were rescheduled. In October 2011, the singer again cancelled the remaining dates of the second leg of her North American tour due to a vocal hemorrhage that caused internal bleeding near her vocal cords. Adele was forced to cancel the remaining dates of her tour to undergo throat surgery for her hemorrhaging.
Production designer Rob Sinclair wanted the stage to be sparse so the audience would focus on Adele and her voice. The back wall of the stage featured a "distinctive" wall of 96 cone-shaped lampshades using 60-watt household lightbulbs to illuminate them. Each lamp was individually dimmed and the bulbs of each lamp were dipped in a special rubber solution so they wouldn't break. The rest of the show featured moving lights and lots of white light to focus on Adele at the center of the stage. The moving lights were designed so that they didn't appear to move from the audience's point-of-view and were powered by Jands Vista's next-generation Vista v2 software. The decision to focus on sculpted white light for the stage won "considerable acclaim."
The tour was minimalist in every aspect, from stage design to using each venue's own sound system rather than transporting a tour-specific system. The front-of-house engineer for the tour was Dave McDonald. McDonald carried an Allen & Heath iLive-112 with him during the tour and hooked it up to each venue's sound-system with a Cat 5 connector. This allowed the tour to travel light and allowed McDonald to control the mix for each show using each venue's systems. McDonald used plug-ins to replicate the sound of vintage ENT plates for the sound. The tour chose to only use Sennheiser microphones. McDonald chose to have Adele use a wireless Sennheiser SKM 2000 system with an SKM 500–965 G3 transmitter. For the back-up singers, McDonald chose hardwired Sennheiser e 935s. The guitarists used Avalon DIs and the piano was a "gag piano", lacquered upright to look traditional but actually housed a Yamaha MO. McDonald's goal for the tour was, "I want the audience to forget who they are for a moment and be able to project themselves solely onto what's occurring onstage. That is, after all, why we go to shows."
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