Michael Kiwanuka walks onto the stage at the Apollo, as his backing band and singers play the first notes. One hand raised to the air to the cheering crowd, he nonchalantly walks up to the microphone and without a moment of hesitation, belts the opening notes out as a multitude of colours light up the stage behind him.
It's almost as if 35-year-old couldn't wait a breath to give the thousands packed into the Apollo the start of his set - and who can blame him or them, given they have waited two years for this moment.
Covid laid waste to the show's original date of September 2020 and once again when it was pencilled in for March 2021. The singer's stock has only risen in the interlude, though, the success of his self-titled 2020 Mercury winning album masterpiece, Kiwanuka , seeping through the national and international music consciousness to firmly establish him as one of the UK's leading music lights.
