Leona Lewis Gets Intimate And Personal In An Unforgettable Show

Apart from Susan Boyle and One Direction, Leona Lewis has been one of the few acts from recent talent shows to achieve success on a global scale.

On her current tour the venues are smaller than the arenas she played on the last UK tour but that is not to say her support is diminishing: tonight's gig was sold out.

Before she enters the stage the words "Hearts are made to be broken" are projected onto the stage curtain.

No surprise here as most of her tracks are about being heartbroken and her latest album is entitled Glassheart.

She enters the stage from a central walkway, looking very much the star. She informs the audience that tonight's show is going to be "intimate and personal".

On her previous tour she did not look at ease but on this tour she looks more relaxed and it feels as if this is her own show, where she has had an input into the gig rather than it being all planned for her by someone else.

The sound is perfect and her sound engineer deserves full credit - every instrument can be heard, the vocals are pitched perfectly in the mix and she is backed by some superb musicians including a string quartet and a guitarist who actually feels what he plays.

Such clarity is rare at a gig these days.

Rather than relying on dancers or other distractions Lewis lets her voice and herself be the main attraction.

Surprisingly her breakthrough hit 'A Moment like This' is performed as the third song in the set making you think she has played her ace card too early, but it is easy to forget how many hits she has had.

Leona sits down to play the piano for 'Whole Lotta Trouble'; the starkness of the track shows that she is an enduring talent.

A stripped down version of Bruno Mars' hit 'Locked out of Heaven' is made her own whilst her version of Roberta Flack's 'The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face' is delicate and touching.

'Bleeding Heart' closes an unforgettable show. On this performance she will be thought of as one of the Britain's best vocalists rather than the winner of a talent show.

The Yorkshire Times caught Leona Lewis at Manchester Apollo on Tuesday 14th May 3013.

Leona Lewis returns to Yorkshire on Friday July 12th at Scarborough Open Air Theatre.