Despite smashing records and making the world weep for days on end, Adele still has as much anxiety as the next person. Following the release of 25, she opened up about how she nearly quit making music after 21, and in a new interview with NPR, she further expounds on how her anxiety manifests as terrible stage fright. Claiming that it comes from a desire to not let fans down, even with her wild success, her stage fright is “getting worse.”
“I get so nervous with live performances that I’m too frightened to try anything new,” she said. “It’s actually getting worse. Or it’s just not getting better, so I feel like it’s getting worse, because it should’ve gotten better by now.”
Still, Adele promises that her upcoming tour will give the fans what they want, including versions of the songs that they actually know, because her favorite part of performing is the audience participation.
“One of my favorite things about going to a gig and, doing a gig, is the singalongs,” she said. “The crowd gets to sing with you and you get to sing with the artist. Like, that’s one of my favorite things personally. So I would never want to perform a song completely differently. I mean, imagine if I started doing a bashment version of ‘Hello’. Everyone would be like, “What?””
At this point, Adele could release a ska track and people would lose their minds, so here’s hoping her next few performances will be as stress-free as possible.
