It’s not often that you go from seeing an artist in a huge arena to an intimate standing-only venue, but that’s exactly what happened when Lewis Capaldi came to The Level for a Q&A on 22 May...
To celebrate the release of his second album, Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent, Lewis Capaldi took to the stage with BBC Music 6 presenter Matt Everitt to answer some questions about making the record. It felt like a continuation from his Netflix documentary How I’m Feeling Now, which many fans who were there will have seen beforehand.
The evening started out with Everitt posing some questions to Capaldi before opening the floor to fans. Even though he got just as many requests as he did questions, Capaldi took great care to grant his fans’ wishes, from taking someone’s BeReal to graciously accepting gifts, and even allowing someone to come down from the balcony to take a selfie with him.
Safety was also a priority. When a woman fainted in the middle of the crowd, Capaldi ensured she was escorted safely out of the building, something that he also did when stood in front of a crowd of 10,000 at the arena just down the road. Here in an intimate setting, it was no different.
A fan on the balcony asked how Capaldi's relationship with his parents is, a question triggered by their revelation that they weren’t big fans of his song The Pretender, which is ironically his own favourite on the album. He went on to perform the song at the end of the Q&A and it was clearly an instant fan favourite, so it seems his parents are in the minority on this one.
The Pretender, along with other moments on the album such as the closer How I’m Feeling Now, talk about his journey with mental health and Tourette’s syndrome, something that is explored in his Netflix documentary. While these songs are not typical Capaldi love ballads, they are refreshing to hear and allow him to be honest and open in his lyrics.
But that doesn’t mean there were no love ballads last night - they are what Capaldi is known for, after all. Spanning his whole career in the space of a few minutes, he performed his most recent Number 1 single, Wish You The Best and his first ever Number 1 single, Someone You Loved. As he noted himself during the performance, not every artist who has a successful debut album manages to follow it up, but hearing these songs back to back proved that Capaldi has done just that.
Lewis Capaldi performed at The Level on 22 May 2023
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