Live Review: Anastacia – 8th November 2022 – Eventim Apollo, London, UK
4 min read
“The I’m Outta Lockdown tour finally unlocked itself”, Anastacia would come to announce ahead of a powerful performance of her breakthrough single I’m Outta Love, nearing the end of what would be a phenomenal return to London stages by the US superstar on Tuesday night at London’s Eventim Apollo. And it seemed for a long time that this tour – like so many others – may not happen at all, thanks to Covid 19 and its crippling effect on the live music industry. Originally planned as a 20th anniversary celebration of the singer’s debut album – the 20th was comically pencilled over with 22nd on promotional posters – a sense of humour that shone out of the superstar during the course of her 90-minute spectacle in West London that could easily have slayed the O2 Arena – and probably would have been more fitting and deserving of the stars booming and unweathered vocals and numerous hits.
The last time we caught the US pop powerhouse was at Mighty Hoopla earlier this year. There, the singer tore the metaphorical house down as she delivered a meaty set of career-spanning hits, warming up headliners, Steps on the first of the two-day LGBT aimed London weekender. It was our second time seeing Anastacia and a taste of what was to come on her current UK tour.
Now, we’ve been to hundred of gigs over the years and I can say with confidence that I haven’t been to a concert as loud, and attended by so many absolute die-hard fans as Monday nights show, in a VERY long time. These fans were completely devoted, singing back to hits like the opening Not That Kind and Sick & Tired with a teenage fan like energy.
With a backing band of 4 and a trio of extremely talented dancers, the show had an arena quality to it with multi colour neon bars lighting up the stage as her dancers provided high-octane moves to accompany full throttle performances of Why’d You Lie to Me and Paid My Dues while the star offered the stage to the threesome to deliver an abstract dance piece while she performed Made for Lovin’ You atop her lit up stage structure.
The majority of hits delivered during the course of 90 mins were positioned predominantly within up-tempo territory – One Day in Your Life, Stupid Little Things and Freak of Nature getting the crowd dancing and reciting the lyrics word for word back to a clearly grateful Anastacia who spoke often to the crowd and even singled out a couple near the front of the audience to ask about them the reasons for coming along to the show. It was however, the nostalgic hits from the singer’s debut album that really had the fans worked into a frenzy with a cane-clutching performance of Not That Kind and I’m Outta Love providing two of the key highlights within the set – both sung in flawless record quality and with every ad-lib present.
While the up-tempo tracks had the crowd worked up, the singers versatility shone equally as strong on a handful of ballads in the centre of the show which included a gorgeous rendition of Cowboys & Kisses and acoustically propelled versions of You’ll Never Be Alone, Who’s Gonna Stop the Rain and Everything Burns from the Fantastic 4 soundtrack and a number she shared with her backing singer and guitarist.
A total of 3 costume changes took place during the set – each equally mesmerising and every bit the style of Anastacia over the years – plenty of denim and tassels. Her final outfit consisted of tie-dyes, figure hugging denim jeans with a plethora of silver changed hanging form the sides and a stunning black and gold jacket with tassels swinging form the arms as she ripped through a phenomenal cover of Guns n Roses’ Sweet Child of Mine while closing Left Outside Alone gave us a final number to the nights incredible show and a reminder of the force of nature that Anastacia has been for the last 22 years as a ground-breaking solo megastar with one of the best and biggest voices in the industry!
Mid-way through the show Anastacia mentioned to the crowd that “My job is to sing the shit out of tonight so you want to see me again” after doing a roll call of who had seen her before against new faces in the crowd. By the end of the show it was fairly safe to assume that this would not be the last time seeing this powerhouse for anyone in the venue.
Set list:
Not That Kind
Freak of Nature
Paid My Dues
Cowboys & Kisses
Overdue Goodbye
Sick and Tired
Why’d You Lie to Me
Made for Lovin’ You
You’ll Never Be Alone
Everything Burns
Who’s Gonna Stop the Rain
Sweet Child o’ Mine (Guns N’ Roses cover)
One Day in Your Life
Stupid Little Things
I’m Outta Love
Encore:
Left Outside Alone
::: RenownedForSound.com’s Editor and Founder –
Interviewing and reviewing the best in new music and globally recognized artists is his passion.
Over the years he has been lucky enough to review thousands of music releases and concerts and interview artists ranging from top selling superstars like 27-time Grammy Award winner Alison Krauss, Boyz II Men, Roxette, Cyndi Lauper, Lisa Loeb and iconic Eagles front man/songwriter, Glenn Frey through to more recent successes including Newton Faulkner, Janelle Monae and Caro Emerald.
Brendon manages and coordinates the amazing team of writers on RenownedForSound.com who are based in the UK, the U.S and Australia.
