Adele at The Wiltern, January 30, 2009

The uniqueness of Adele’s music struck me from the first listen. Her songs are delivered with clean, jazz influenced vocals and instrumentation with honest heartfelt lyrics – traditional, yes, but fresh in today’s music. She delivers, in essence, drama without the drama, which is even more impressive if you consider her young age. Last Friday she performed her third LA show in less than a year and by far the largest to date, a fact which she confessed, was a little overwhelming. To Adele’s credit she smoothly translated the intimacy of her previous shows at the Roxy and Hotel Café for the capacity Wiltern crowd, captivating the audience with songs from her debut album 19 as well as covers of Etta James’ “Fool That I Am” and Sam Cooke’s “That’s It I Quit I’m Moving On”. Feeling more at ease towards the latter part of the show, she asked for the house lights to be turned on and kept on so she could see the audience while she performed – a first time experience for me as well as probably most in attendance I gathered. Adele’s next Los Angeles show stands to be her largest yet. She’s teaming up with the LA Philharmonic for a headlining show at the Hollywood Bowl. Bring your sunglasses – it promises to be bright evening.

Adele @ Hollywood Bowl (KCRW World Festival) Sun 6/28