Wielding the dramatic backdrop of Los Angeles (a city that surely understands the value of the cinematic), Griffith Park Observatory was the ideal location for Adele to reacquaint herself with the “public.” Or rather, a highly curated public that included her favorite cabal of celebrity friends (e.g. Lizzo, Nicole Richie, Melissa McCarthy, James Corden, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Selena Gomez, Leonardo DiCaprio and Adele lookalike Sarah Paulson, among others). More controversial guests included Ellen DeGeneres (‘cause she’s still the puta who made Adele’s unspoken foil, Taylor Swift, feel like shit—along with countless other guests), Kris Jenner and Drake (the latter two still being fresh off their association with Astroworld and overall celebrity callousness). Sure, there were a few “normals” somewhere in there, but, by and large, it was a quintessential “star-studded event” as one expects of such productions in L.A.
As Adele’s adopted home, she’s learned to become more comfortable in her own celebrity skin, not least of which includes “gettin’ fit” (and actually staying that way)—a phenomenon she openly admits is usually a privilege reserved for the rich with the time to invest in it and the money to pay a trainer. That much is made further evident when she tells Oprah during an interview segment of Adele One Night Only, “I started to notice…how much I trusted my trainer and his, like, presence when I was feeling so lost, but also that I didn’t have any anxiety when I was with him at the gym. So then I started to up it every day. And then I had nothing else to do and I think it was just—it became my time. Me having a plan every day when I had no plans, I had no idea what each day was gonna bring for me. But me knowing that at nine a.m., I’m gonna go to the gym—‘Okay great, well that gives me some discipline. Okay, one p.m. I’m gonna go for a hike.’ You know, having these sort of pins in my day helped me keep myself together.” Whereas most other people don’t have the luxury of time to worry about needing “pins in their day” to “keep themselves together.” They’re too focused on the banalities of making ends meet. Adele, on the other hand, is part of the rare few who get to experience a more pleasant form of banality in that she doesn’t have to be under anyone’s thumb while experiencing her brand of “boredom.”
Before the interview with Oprah becomes interspersed throughout the performances, however, Adele opens the special with, what else, “Hello.” A song she says she probably can’t rightly use in any other portion of a performance apart from the beginning. As she stands in regal glory while wearing what she herself calls a decidedly Death Becomes Her-inspired gown, the Hollywood sign looms large above her in a manner that almost makes it look as though she’s engaging in a satanic sacrifice on the pyre of fame. A conspiracy theory given weight when she flashes the devil horn sign. But hey, at least her means of “satanic” flair is less dangerous than what Travis Scott did.
Adele then segues into her most recent single, “Easy on Me,” during which Lizzo is especially animated in the audience. To the delight of many, “Skyfall” (arguably one of the best Bond songs) is also included in the setlist, with Adele perhaps wanting to remind fellow Angeleno Billie Eilish that she still reigns supreme on this front in the face of “No Time to Die” (which Eilish herself said drew inspiration from “Skyfall”). The track also holds a special place in Adele’s heart thanks to it being the only song she recorded while pregnant with her son, Angelo, who just so happened to be in the audience as well, seeing her perform for the first time. Per Adele, it’s only slowly dawning on him that she’s someone “well-liked,” though he has no idea that her clout is just as powerful as Taylor Swift’s, a singer that Angelo has seen perform live before his own mum. Silhouettes of the musicians playing their string arrangements for “Skyfall” are projected against the Griffith Observatory building to lend an added “Bond intro” flavor. And it won’t be the only time projections are used to grandiose effect, including the moment when Adele uses a picture (during “When We Were Young”) of herself with the Spice Girls, her forever idols, and the group she openly chose over The Beatles during her “73 Questions with Vogue” interview.
After “Skyfall,” Adele opts to debut the already much-talked about “I Drink Wine,” featuring memorable lyrics like, “When I was a child every single thing could blow my mind/Soaking it all up for fun, but now I only soak up wine/They say to play hard, you work hard, find balance in the sacrifice/And yet I don’t know anybody who’s truly satisfied.” It’s a heavy and philosophical sentiment, especially for someone who is supposed to “have it all.” As for Adele’s alcoholic tendencies these days, she admits to Oprah that they’ve calmed down after her long-standing “fascination” with the drug (something also expressed by Lana Del Rey during her own alcoholic foray, remarking, “I would drink alone. I thought the whole concept was so fucking cool”). An obsession that in part stemmed from own father’s alcoholism. And yes, naturally, Oprah is wont to broach the subject of Adele’s “Daddy issues,” particularly since her father died recently. Luckily, Adele managed to get on good terms with him before he departed this Earth.
Feelin’ awkward about “Someone Like You” now (what with having abandoned the “good man” she was looking for in a husband like Simon Konecki), Adele briefly introduces it with, “This is the first time I’ve performed it since everything went down.” Even so, she can still belt it out as though her heart is truly in it. Just as she can still wish the best for others who are about to get married, like Quentin and Ashley, a couple that managed to get the ultimate engagement proposal when Adele agreed to sing her rendition of “Make You Feel My Love” (preceded by “When We Were Young”) after Ashley said yes (and of course she did after seven years invested in Quentin).
Adele performs another song from 30 for the first time, “Hold On,” after this—though we’ve already heard it before in, of all things, an Amazon commercial. This leads into the penultimate track in her setlist, “Rolling in the Deep,” rife for the projection display of crashing waves behind her. “Love is a Game” serves as the closer, as well as one of only four songs that Adele chooses to preview from 30. Singing, “Love is a game for fools to play/And I ain’t fooling/What a cruel thing to self-inflict that pain.” And yet, that’s precisely what Adele seems to be doing once again with Rich Paul, the “super agent” she’s been dating. Of her “beau,” Oprah asks, “What was it about him that drew you to him?” A brief pause where we half-expect her to say, “His big black cock” is filled with her assurance, “He’s just hilarious.” And everybody loves a good laugh in bed. As Adele concludes in “Love is a Game,” “I’d do it all again/Like I did it/‘Cause I’m addicted, I’m addicted/You know I’m gonna do it again.” Are we sure she’s not merely referencing the pull of sex as it relates to “love”? That much is open to interpretation.
In the end, Adele One Night Only offers more candor through the chanteuse’s usual medium of song than it does in her interview excerpts with Oprah—which certainly have nothing on the Harry and Meghan revelations. While Adele might be as “open” as ever, her most unabashed form of expression remains through her songwriting. Something she has very obviously in common with her November competitor, Taylor.
