Video will appear as you scroll through the story
Adele · S6 E7
Wembley
Two nights at Wembley Stadium. 98,000 people per show. She breaks the Grammy for Album of the Year in half on stage and gives it to Beyonce.
July 1, 2017. Ninety-eight thousand ticket holders for Adele's third Wembley Stadium show receive a message on their phones: tonight's concert has been cancelled, and so has tomorrow's.
Adele, "When We Were Young" (official music video, 2015). Directed by Sam Brown, the video places Adele alone in a vast, empty room, singing about time slipping away. No effects, no narrative, just a voice filling an empty space. In the context of the Wembley farewell, it plays like a goodbye letter.
When We Were Young
Co-written with Tobias Jesso Jr. during a single afternoon, the first time Adele played this for her label, several people in the room were reportedly in tears. The arrangement builds from a lone piano into sweeping strings, and her vocal follows the same arc: intimate in the verse, towering by the final chorus. Listen for the restraint in the opening line, someone trying not to cry, and that control is what makes the release so powerful when it finally comes.
The Last Night
The 25 World Tour ends where it should: Wembley Stadium, the biggest venue in British music. Adele plays to 98,000 people on June 28 and 29, 2017. During the second show, her voice begins to struggle. She cancels the final two dates, citing damaged vocal cords.
TAP TO REVEAL: What did Adele tell the Wembley audience that turned out to be a prophecy?
“"I'm so sorry. To not be able to finish where I wanted to, in my hometown of London, breaks my heart."”
Wembley Stadium
The 90,000-capacity stadium where the 25 World Tour was supposed to end with four triumphant nights. Only two happened.
As of 2024, what are the last dates of a traditional concert tour that Adele has ever performed?
Cry Your Heart Out
From 30 (2021). An upbeat, reggae-tinged track where Adele gives herself permission to fall apart. Over a bouncing rhythm and handclaps, she catalogs the mess of her life and decides the only way through it is to feel everything at once. After an episode about vocal cords failing and a tour ending, this is the sound of someone picking themselves up off the floor.
Cry Your Heart Out, Adele (2021)
Read the lyrics while you listen. The production sounds almost cheerful, but the words underneath are brutal. That mismatch between the beat and the emotion is the whole point. Sometimes the only way to survive something is to dance while you cry.
The Final Bow
The voice goes quiet again. But this time, the silence isn't about recovery. It's about a marriage falling apart, a life being rebuilt, and the most personal record Adele will ever make.
0 XP earned this session