Adele, 18th April 2011, HMV Institute, Birmingham
Written by EH   
Monday, 25 April 2011 00:00
Hello hello, I hope you are all making the most of this unusually sunny and seemingly endless Bank Holiday bonanza! I have been enjoying a well earned week and a bit off, back to the grind for most of us tomorrow. This time last week I was getting ready to go and see Adele (yes I know the review is v delayed but better late than never - right?)

I'm going to break the evening down into three sections, The Voice, The Vibe & The Venue, so let's start with the positives - The Voice... Those of you who have read my posts before will know I am a huge fan of Adele and have been to see her on numerous occasions and I make no excuses for sounding like a broken record when I say that it is a privilege to hear someone with such a gift perform live. Usually at gigs it's a pounding baseline or rousing guitar rift that brings the goose bumps to the surface, it's quite unusual for a voice to have that impact. If you get chance to go and see her on tour then please do, you will not be disappointed. 

The Vibe - there was a whole lot of love in the room on Monday night. One of the things I love about going to gigs is seeing the mix of people there, most social occasions bring together tribes of similar ages and interests. Gigs seem to throw a whole bunch of people together who wouldn't usually  rub shoulders socially, but it doesn't matter because everyone has that one thing in common - the music they are there to enjoy. Adele engages the audience with her down to earth warmth and chit chat between songs. She has not let the fame go to her head in any way and this endearing quality just makes it impossible to not like her. 

The Venue - I don't usually like to moan about things but there was a down side to the evening that can't go unmentioned. The gig was at the HMV Institute in Digbeth, a venue I've been to many times and I like the place itself. But I think the promoters or whoever is in charge of the ticket allocation shafted a large portion of the crowd, namely those who couldn't see a bloody thing!! I'm under no illusion that when you go to a gig you will be afforded a perfect and unhampered view of the stage, heck I've been to enough gigs to feel lucky if I can see part of the stage and not just the shoulders of the really tall person in front of me. But the view that myself, Rach, Tone & Nat had on Monday was ridiculous, I wouldn't even call it a view the only thing I caught an odd glimpse of was a lampshade and that was hanging high above the stage. Because of the way the balcony areas are with a few rows of seats at the front and then an aisle of sorts behind them unless you are seated or standing right near the seats you can't see down to the stage. So I reckon that at least a third of the people up in the balcony who were stood in the aisles as we were wouldn't have been able to see anything either. If you were there and had the same problem I would love to know, drop a comment below. This was our 'view'...


Moan nearly over... I appreciate that with gigs if you want to be right at the front you need to be first in the queue on the night to fight for your place and the later you come the slimmer the pickings in terms of a good view. But we couldn't go elsewhere in the venue, the tickets were for the upper balcony, so if for example the upper balcony seats 300 people, 100 people can stand in the area immediately behind the seats, why sell additional tickets for places where a view of the stage isn't possible? That's completely rubbish if you ask me. I heard the voice which was wonderful but it would have been nice to see the artist too, I've had to google to see what the stage looked like! "Lampshades!" (my new swear word of sorts)



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