“I love Beyonce as much as I love my son. But really, I need to get tickets to her show.”

It’s not often that Grammy-winning singers bless us with personal anecdotes during their concerts, but on her Sept. 22 show at Madison Square Garden, Adele quipped out in abundance, taking her already soulful concert to a whole new level of intimacy.

Walking out into a crowd of 18,000, the British singer, popular for hits such as “Chasing Pavements,” “Skyfall” and “Someone Like You” started off the show by running towards each section of the audience, capturing a few selfies with the audience and dashing back onto the middle stage to belt out her hit “Hello.” Surrounded by two huge screens featuring her mascara-laden eyelashes, Adele soared to dazzling heights, reaching that high soprano pinnacle that most can only dream of singing.

“New York, it’s a Thursday, but let’s pretend it’s a Friday or Saturday. How are you doing? I did some wonderful things this past week. I went to the Bronx Zoo yesterday, and my god, it’s a lot better than the Central Park Zoo. You should go there,” she said, decked out in a glittering black gown.

Throughout the two-hour-long concert, which she jokingly described to be “on the longer side,” Adele crooned out her hits, backing them up with a powerful orchestra of singers and classical musicians and visuals that corresponded exquisitely to each respective song. She dedicated “Hometown Glory” to New York City, displayed images of her childhood with “When We Were Young” and rocked out “Rolling In The Deep” in the finale to actual rain mid-stage. (So naturally, a totally normal thing to do on a bustling Thursday night.)

Whilst Adele’s voice and her ability to change from a deep tenor range to a high soprano remains the main reason behind her sold-out concerts, it’s also her on-stage personality and push to address every single personal story with her audience that turns the arena into a special family-dinner-style setting.

“When I was a teen, I didn’t realize how many things my mum used to do in the house. It was amazing, really. She used to nag, but which mum doesn’t? Now I nag my four-year-old,” she laughed, singling out a mother and daughter pair from the crowd and beckoning them onto stage.

From addressing the infamous Brangelina divorce controversy to talking about how she felt uncomfortable singing about an ex while being with a partner, Adele dished out her personal opinions and asked the audience how they felt about them, too. She interspersed her hits with tales of her hardships in her early 20s and explained why New York was so special to her.

Although Adele’s chats seemed long-winded at times, the 28-year-old made sure her audience was her family and took them on a riveting journey of
soulful perfection.

A version of this article appeared in the Monday, Sept. 26 print edition. Email Dakshayani Shankar at [email protected].