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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 explains why she disappears after each album (The Graham Norton Show, 2022). The emotional and mental toll of creating a record, the need to step away, and the reason she can't just keep going after a tour. In the context of the Wembley cancellation and the decision to stop touring, this is Adele explaining in her own words what the audience at Wembley couldn't see backstage.
The Cost of Performing
The 25 World Tour runs for over 100 shows across eighteen months. Every night, Adele performs songs written from the deepest emotional places she's been: heartbreak, grief, the fear of ageing. The physical toll on her vocal cords is well-documented, but the mental toll is what she talks about less. Reliving those emotions nightly, in front of tens of thousands of people, is what eventually makes her stop.
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?
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.
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