Adele told fans she was “thrilled” as she performed her first UK gig in five years.
The 34-year-old pop star performed at BST Hyde Park on Friday evening, with the sold-out crowd hearing back-to-back hits spanning across her four number one albums.
Arriving on stage in a black gown, she was visibly emotional as fans screamed back the opening lyrics to Hello.
“What’s happening to me?!”, she asked, as she instructed the audience to help her carry the song in the central London park, before belting out the tune herself.
In a break, London-born Adele said: “Hello, I’m so happy to be here.
“Guys, I’m back at home, also where I know. The amount of times I have been up there drunk off of my face, singing along to other artists at these shows.”
She added she was “thrilled” to be out performing again, but admitted it was “strange to be in front of a crowd again”.
Adele powered through numbers such as Easy On Me, Rumour Has It, To Make You Feel My Love and Rolling In The Deep, while chatting to the crowd in between tracks in her typically comical style.
She fired T-shirts and £50 notes out of a cannon gun into the crowd, and even promised one fan who had just turned 18 that she would buy them their first drink after the show
At several points in the evening she stopped the show to alert security to potential issues in the audience, in an effort to keep everyone safe.
Alluding to the much-reported delays to her ill-fated Las Vegas residency and the postponement of an album, Adele told fans: “I know that a lot of things have happened with this album and I’m sure a lot of you feel that you’ve been let down and stuff, which is mortifying really and upsetting to me.
“But I take my singing very seriously and the last thing I would ever want to do is let people down but I had to do that, it just wasn’t right.”
Adele pulled the string of shows at Caesars Palace just days before they were due to happen, saying that the spectacle would not be ready in time.
There has been no word since on when the shows might resume at the world-famous venue.
Her performance at BST Hyde Park marks her first festival show since 2016, when she lit up the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury.
Though this is her first UK gig in five years, she sung at this year’s Brit Awards at the O2 Arena and hosted An Audience With Adele at the London Palladium last November.
Adele will perform a second sold-out concert at Hyde Park on Saturday, with The Rolling Stones, Pearl Jam and Duran Duran all appearing at the concert series over the next few nights.