How Adele’s Monaco Residency Debuted

A two-hour show, twenty songs, 75,000 spectators sitting in the stands of an arena built specifically for her to cheer her on, fireworks, confetti and a multiplication of videos of the evening on social media: the debut of Adele’s residency in Munich was a triumph.

The British pop diva last night kicked off a series of shows, ten in all, marking her live return to continental Europe after eight, very long years. In the summer of 2022, she performed two shows in Hyde Park, London, across the Channel. Then in the fall of that year, the voice of “Someone like you” inaugurated the “Weekend with Adele” artistic residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, which will resume in October after the European interlude, for the last ten of the one hundred scheduled shows.

Last night Adele performed on a stage 200 meters long and 30 meters high, topped by a 220-meter-long giant film-shaped screen, a Guinness World Record: a LED wall of this size had never been seen in an open-air arena. In front of the first 75,000 of the 750,000 spectators who bought tickets for “Adele in Munich” – prices from 79 euros to 749 euros, but VIP packs were also put on sale at prices from 488 euros to 1,252 euros – the British singer-songwriter retraced her career, which began in 2008 with the release of her debut album “19” (the one with “Chasing Pavements”, her first hit): she opened the show with the inevitable “Hello”, then one after the other came “Rumour Has It”, “I Drink Wine”, “Water Under the Bridge”, “Easy on Me”, “Hometown Glory”, “Love in the Dark” (an orchestra appeared on the circular stage), the cover of “Make You Feel My Love” by Bob Dylan, “Skyfall”, “Set Fire to the Rain” and “Someone Like You”, until the closing with “Rolling in the Deep”.

The arena was built in a 400,000 square meter area dubbed “Adele’s World”, with shops, lounges, rides, restaurants. The stage was conceived and designed for Adele by Florian Wieder, set designer and artistic director with active collaborations with U2, Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé (he also curated the sets for the Eurovision Song Contest and the opening shows of events such as the 2022 World Cup).

According to German media, the ten concerts, the last of which is scheduled for August 31, have generated revenues of 566 million euros in restaurants, hotels and trains. In the only interview she gave on the eve of her debut, to the cameras of German broadcaster ZDF, Adele announced her intention to take a break from music: “I don’t have any plans for new music. I want to take a long break and I think I want to do other creative things.”

Here are the videos and the setlist of the concert:

“Hello”
“Rumour has it”
“I drink wine”
“Water under the bridge”
“Easy on me”
“One and only”
“I’ll be waiting”
“Oh my god”
“Send my love (to your new lover)”
“Hometown Glory”

“Love in the Dark”
“Make you feel my love”
“Chasing pavements”
“All I ask”
“Skyfall”
“Set fire to the rain”
“All night parking”
“Hold on”
“When we were young”
“Someone like you”
“Rolling in The Deep”