Lewis Capaldi Mixes Heartfelt Songs With Witty Banter at His Last U.S. Tour Stop

It has been less than a month since Scottish singer-songwriter Lewis Capaldi released his chart-topping debut album “Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent,” but he has already won over scores and scores of fans on both sides of the pond, partially in thanks to “Someone You Love,” his breakthrough song that became the UK’s best selling single in 2018. For the last show on his U.S. tour, Capaldi played the sold-out Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, CA to an extremely enthusiastic crowd.

“Bruises,” an angsty song about dealing with the end of a relationship, opened Capaldi’s set, as the crowd went wild. Hearing Capaldi’s powerful and soulful vocals in person is quite an experience. Capaldi may only be 22 years old, but his deeply emotional songs, such as “Someone You Love” and “Hold Me While You Wait,” sound like the work of someone wise beyond his years, one who has experienced life-changing heartbreak and has lived to tell about it. The young crowd who packed the Fonda was comprised mostly of ardent fans who already seemed to know every word to Capaldi’s songs.

As Capaldi is known for his keen sense of humor, which comes through loud and clear in his Instagram stories and interviews, it should be no surprise that he is more than adept when it comes to engaging the audience with witty banter. In his strong Scottish accent, he cracked jokes about using virtual reality to masturbate, an audience member finding his Tinder profile, and his critics. While his debut album has received much acclaim, supposedly there’s one critic out there who believes he sounds like a “constipated Hozier.”

While all the songs that Capaldi performed resonated with the audience, other highlights in Capaldi’s set included ”Grace,” a song about forgiveness with a rousing chorus, “Hollywood,” a track about escaping to get over a lost love, and “Forever,” another song dealing with an ended relationship, one in which Capaldi tells his former that the love was real, even if it didn’t last until death. If the fan’s reaction to the night were any indication, admiration of Capaldi and his music is sure to last for years to come. 

With only one full-length album under his belt, Capaldi’s set only ran about an hour. He eschewed doing an encore, laughing off the phoniness of pretending to say goodnight only to just hide backstage for a few moments. There’s no denying that this self-described “chubby little guy from Scotland” has made a major impression here in the States, with his impassioned performances and honesty in his music and beyond.

Lewis Capaldi performed June 12 at the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, CA.