Image by Caralyn Green
Adele finds her blue-eyed soul in Philly
June 15, 2008, at World Café Live
By Caralyn Green
Published: June 17th, 2008 | 12:01pm
Face bare and hair twisted into a haphazard side-bun, Adele — the buxom 20-year-old “New Amy” who’s not Duffy — announced she’d just woken from a nap. As in, she’d literally woken seconds before stepping on stage. So please excuse her “sleepy voice,” Adele pleaded, as she promised it would pass. And it did. Within a couple numbers, Adele was on, breezing her way through a mixture of enjoyably conventional covers (Etta James’ “Fool That I Am,” Sam Cooke’s “That’s It, I Quit, I’m Movin’ On”) and choice cuts from this spring’s 19 (XL Recordings) with a bawdy, come-what-may attitude that’s both commanding and, like, totally relatable.
When Adele sings, she sounds like she’s tasted heartache; when she speaks, you wanna invite her out for a cold one and a basket of fries. She’s the kind of girl, y’know, who’d egg you on to pinch a stranger's bum, then go home and write a song about how pinching a stranger's bum is the epitome of loneliness.
See, Adele thrives in loneliness. She’s at her best when she’s singing about her broken heart and her ex love’s cold shoulder. Like, despite the fact Adele forgot the words to “First Love” (too busy trying to find the perfect pitch) and had to start over, her mature and able rasp of a sweet songbird sing made it the most hard-hitting solitary interlude imaginable (save for finale “Chasing Pavements” and “Make You Feel My Love,” that is).
Several times during the show Adele apologized to the packed room for what she saw as moments of less-than-perfection (“I can’t mess up again 'cause then you’ll all leave,” she lamented), but no one was even eying the door. All eyes were onstage and all adoration was hers for the taking — a small girl even gifted Adele a bouquet of flowers and a man in the audience, a note thanking Adele for staying true to her art. We were mesmerized — did she just hit that note? Did she just render Mark Ronson’s production obsolete by performing with just an acoustic guitar, and killing it? Did she just make me wanna be her?
Arguably, Adele’s got the best voice in the neo-soul Brit bunch. Whether or not her album is the best, I dunno. Duffy’s Rockferry is stellar if only 'cause of “Mercy” and Estelle’s got the one-up by being the only black girl in the lot to be performing something like soul, rather than its blue-eyed cousin. Unlike Estelle and Duffy who’ve got the tiny waists, and Winehouse who’s got the drama, though, Adele’s just got, well, the talent. And that’s more than enough.
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