Balladeer and endearing funny man Lewis Capaldi told a sold-out crowd at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena numerous times last Wednesday night he was having a good time.
That might seem de rigueur concert-speak for most artists, but for the Scotsman, known for heart wrenching lyrics like “Someone You Love” and last year’s empowering comeback single, “Survive,” it’s a big big deal.
In June of 2023, he announced he was taking a break “for the foreseeable future,” to get his “mental and physical health in order,” after struggling during his Glastonbury Festival set. Some 100,000 fans dutifully stepped in to sing in his place. The singer, who has Tourette syndrome, returned triumphantly to Glastonbury last summer for a surprise set, and it seems things are back on track for him.
Four songs into his 17-song Scotiabank set — that began with “Survive” and followed with “Grace,” “Heavenly Kind of State of Mind” and “Forever”— he talked for almost six minutes. He called it “rambling,” but it was a little catch-up.
The 29-year-old, who has two full-length albums, calculated it had been three years since he was last here, thanked everyone “for showing up and selling this place out,” and congratulated the Toronto Raptors for making the playoffs; the show was moved up a day to accommodate the NBA schedule.
But, more sincerely, he said, he always has an amazing time here and would’ve been back earlier, but “I had to take a bit of a break because I came down with a bad, bad case of men’s mental health, everybody,” he said. “Thank you for cheering for mental health. It was a really dark time for me. I feel good now. I feel great.”
He added he did a lot of therapy, encouraging cheers again, quipping he paid a lot of money to talk about his feelings, then adding, “Let’s not talk about therapy; it’s boring.”
He then moved on to praise the audience for coming out “on a Wednesday night,” said he hasn’t figured out what to say between songs yet, “sometimes I have nothing and sometimes I’m just musing.” Tonight was the musing.
He did a quick survey of who was having a few drinks (“alcoholics, the lot of ya”) and who was sober (“you’re boring”), acknowledged we can smoke weed in Canada, complete with puffing gesture, and cautioned those brought to the show who didn’t know his music, “I hope you like ballads because we’ve got a lot of them.”
And there certainly were.
He played ‘em all and the crowd sang along to many, this time not in aid, like they had at Glastonbury, but for the sheer joy and communal love of it all — of him.
The set spanned his near-decade in the spotlight, from his 2017 debut single, “Bruises” and 2018’s “Someone You Loved,” and “Hold Me While You Wait” from his debut album, Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent, through to a bunch from the 2023 follow-up album, Broken by Desire to Be Heavenly Sent, including “Forget Me,” “Wish You The Best,” “Pointless,” “Love the Hell Out of You,” and “Heavenly Kind of State of Mind.”
Capaldi did take a moment to rattle off the talent Canada has produced, singing a snippet of Celine Dion’s falsetto “The Power of Love” and then a bit of Justin Bieber’s “Baby,” before suddenly tweaking that Drake and The Weeknd were both from Toronto. He then did some thinking out loud about The Weeknd’s lyrics, as he has done in the past, saying he sings a lot about sex. “Calm down – you’re able,” he said, punning on his birthname, Abel. “He must be some shagger.”
Before leaving the stage, he said his next break would be to work on his next album and promised he would be back soon after.
“Six months into this tour, and this is the f**king most fun I’ve had on tour ever,” he said.
“I hope you enjoyed yourselves as well. I f**king love this, and I feel really relaxed and comfortable up on stage again. I’m sorry it took me so long to come back to Canada, but I promise it will not be as long the next time.”
