“We’re gonna get to know each other better tonight,” John Legend promises his audience, speaking smoothly over an easy piano melody. Billed as An Evening with John Legend, tonight’s concept is simple: just Legend, his voice, his life story and a piano. It’s a bold choice to stage an entire two-act Royal Albert Hall show alone with no accompaniment, but if there’s anyone who can keep an audience entertained for two hours, it’s Legend. His agile voice and virtuoso pianist skills shine when left to stand alone, even if the bare-bones nature of the staging is a little startling.
Born in 1978 in Springfield, Ohio – or in his words, “the Slough of the States” – John Stephens was a musical and academic prodigy, whose love of music began in his family’s Pentecostal church. After a tough adolescence, which included the death of his grandmother and his mother’s resulting substance abuse, Stephens beat the odds and continued to excel. He inherited control of the church choir from his grandmother, then sailed through his school exams and started university two years earlier than scheduled. After years of balancing studies and office jobs, Stephens took a leap into becoming a professional musician, adopted his “Legend” stage name and released his first album, Get Lifted, in 2004 to critical acclaim.
An Emmy, 12 Grammys, an Oscar and a Tony later, Legend sits before us as one of the industry’s most reliably impressive talents. No sheet music necessary, he takes complete charge of the grand piano. He moves deftly from hymns to his favourite Stevie Wonder tracks to a moving cover of Sade’s “By Your Side”. Some of the evening’s most thrilling moments arrive courtesy of his features on other artists’ songs. You can hear his work on the stomping chords of Lauryn Hill’s 1998 track “Everything is Everything”, and his piercing falsetto in the background of Alicia Keys’ 2006 hit, “You Don’t Know My Name”. Anecdotes tumble from Legend as easily as his buttery lyrics. He tells us of how a casual lunch of chicken and waffles with “a cool British artist named Estelle” sparked the production of the 2008 floor-filler “American Boy”. Later, he reveals how a songwriting session with Black Eyed Peas saw him stumble on the chords for “Ordinary People” – a song Legend tells us he’s endlessly glad he kept for himself.
Having worked closely with Kanye West in the early days of their careers, Legend can’t sidestep a brief discussion about his former friend. “Yes, we all miss the old Kanye,” he adds dryly after an early mention of the controversial rapper. Legend name-checks his first single, “Used to Love U”, as a track that soared thanks to that funky combination of West’s hip-hop sensibilities and Legend’s gospel-inflected soul stylings. It’s a rare moment in which the audience is invited to join in with him, providing that “ha-la-la” choral refrain. As much as it’s a treat to be in the presence of such exposed talent, moments like these make you wonder just how much more sparkling the evening could be with the inclusion of backing vocalists and a band. Sometimes, you just wish the sound was a touch fuller.
Unsurprisingly, Legend’s most anticipated song comes late in the setlist. His 2013 ballad “All of Me” is the penultimate track of the night. Its inescapable popularity is attested to by the hundreds of phones that light up at once to capture the moment. It’s worth the wait. Although he has surely performed the song more times than he could possibly count, Legend brings heart and passion to tonight’s rendition. In a sweet aside, he points out Chrissy Teigen among the crowd, his wife of nearly a decade and the subject of “All of Me”, telling the crowd of how she continues to inspire the love songs that fill his albums today. Along with another Teigen tribute, 2022’s “Nervous”, Legend ends his no-frills, intimate night in classy fashion, leaving his audience knowing more about the man behind the music than ever before.
