This time, Adele's show was ready.
The singer has kicked off her Las Vegas tour residency Weekends With Adele 10 months after she postponed the anticipated concert series in a move that sparked controversy. On Nov. 18, finally onstage at the Colosseum at Caesar's Palace, Adele became tearful several times as she performed for an audience of more than 4,000 people, which included her son, Angelo, 10, and her boyfriend, sports agent Rich Paul.
"Thank you so much for coming back to me," she told the crowd, according to The Guardian. "It looks just like I imagined it would."
Adele opened the show with her 2015 hit ballad "Hello" and later performed songs such as "Easy on Me," "Rumour Has It," "Skyfall," "Someone Like You," Rolling in the Deep," "Set Fire to the Rain" and "When We Were Young." While performing the latter track, the singer walked into the audience and at one point, embraced her boyfriend.
Onstage, Adele wore an off-the-shoulder black Schiaparelli Haute Couture gown, paired with a silk wrap secured around her waist with a gold brooch, Lorraine Schwartz jewelry and no shoes. "She's going to be barefoot," her stylist, Jamie Mizrahi, told The Wall Street Journal. "Or, actually, we have socks if she wants them. So [the dress] needs to be to the floor."
On Jan. 20, a day before she was originally scheduled to begin her Las Vegas residency, Adele announced in an emotional Instagram video, "Listen, I'm so sorry but my show ain't ready. We've tried absolutely everything that we can to pull it together in time and for it to be good enough for you, but we've been absolutely destroyed by delivery delays and COVID."
During her concert Nov. 18, Adele addressed the backlash over the postponement. "I'd really like to thank Caesars because there has been a lot of s--t written about me since I cancelled my shows," she said. "I tell you 90 percent of it is absolutely completely made up—there's been rumors that I'm moving hotels and I'm moving theaters and all this and never once did they ask any questions."
On Nov. 17, the day before the singer's first Weekends with Adele show, she shared her feelings about finally beginning her residency. "I'm feeling all sorts as I write this," she wrote on Instagram. "I'm highly emotional, incredibly nervous but can't sit still because I'm so excited."
Adele continued, "I feel a million miles away from home, I can't stop thinking about when I was little and saw Tom Jones in Mars Attacks and thought blimey how did he get from Wales to Las Vegas!? I always get scared before shows, and I take it as a good sign because it means I care and means I just want to do a good job."
Weekends With Adele will run until March 25, 2023.
See photos of Adele at her first Weekends With Adele Las Vegas residency show:
Following a controversial 10-month postponement, the singer kicked off her Weekends With Adele Las Vegas residency show at the Colosseum at Caesar's Palace Nov. 18, 2022.