Eight years ago, Lewis Capaldi performed to a room of no more than 500 at Oxford Art Factory in Sydney’s CBD. (Funnily enough, just the night before, another young artist from across the pond known as YUNGBLUD had taken to that same stage). By 2020, Capaldi had graduated to playing for 5,000 fans at Hordern Pavilion on his highly successful ‘Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent’ tour. Last night, he played to 21,000 fans at the first of three nights at Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena.
I arrived early to catch Weezer’s set from outside the Good Things festival gates, just across from where Lewis would be playing. Thousands milled about in the heat, all there for the same reason – music (in whatever taste that might be!).
Lewis took to the stage following his backing band, and if you took a moment to turn towards the crowd, you would see the immediate impact he had. Many smiles and many tears, which is a great way to describe Lewis’s show as a whole. Capaldi has made a significant return to music in 2025 after a two-year hiatus.
Everything was kept fairly simple production-wise, with Lewis at the helm with his guitar and occasionally fronting the piano. The stage cameras projecting the scene to the very back of the crowd were being moved very cinematically, so you could catch the expansiveness of the space from Lewis’s perspective – I adore seeing fans on the big screen.
Lewis spoke and carried himself so lightly, considering the heaviness of his ballads. Opening with ‘Survive’ and ‘Grace’, the weight was immediately felt throughout the arena, but Lewis’s between-song banter provided the perfect counterbalance. His self-deprecating Scottish humour had the crowd giggling. It’s this contrast that makes a Lewis Capaldi show so uniquely affecting.
The new material from his latest work was woven seamlessly throughout the set. ‘Heavenly Kind of State of Mind’ and ‘Wish You The Best’ demonstrated that his voice hasn’t lost any of its emotional punch during his time away.
The familiar hits landed with the weight you’d expect. ‘Bruises’ had the entire venue singing along, voices cracking in all the right places. ‘Almost’, ‘Pointless’ and ‘Forget Me’ continued the emotional journey, with Lewis pausing occasionally to joke about how depressing his setlist is, which somehow made it all feel more cathartic rather than heavy-handed. ‘Something in the Heavens’, ‘Leave Me Slowly’ and ‘The Pretender’ kept the momentum building.
‘Before You Go’ towards the end of the main set was the moment where even the people who’d been holding it together finally let go. Phone lights illuminated the arena as 21,000 voices joined Lewis on the chorus, creating one of those gorgeous, spine-tingling moments.
The encore opened with ‘How I’m Feeling Now’, a particularly poignant choice given his recent return to touring. ‘Hold Me While You Wait’ had the crowd swaying, before the inevitable closer ‘Someone You Loved’ brought the night to its emotional peak. It’s a song that’s been streamed billions of times, covered endlessly, and soundtracked countless moments in people’s lives, yet hearing it live with Lewis’s raw vocal delivery and thousands singing every word still felt special.
Lewis Capaldi has managed to return to the stage without losing any of the vulnerability that made people connect with him in the first place. He’s still the same guy who played to 300 people at Oxford Art Factory, just now doing it in arenas. The production may have grown, but the heart of the show remains unchanged.
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