00s icon LeAnn Rimes reclaims her lost youth at London’s O2 Arena

A sole figure walked out onto the stage and took a seat at a grand piano surrounded by candles flickering in the cool breeze running through The O2.

As her fingers lightly touched the keys, LeAnn Rimes’ instantly recognisable voice belted out the words to Life Goes On, followed by Blue. She is able to demonstrate her credentials as the newest judge on The Voice UK in just a few notes.

The American artist paused only briefly to marvel at it being over six years since she last performed in the country. She can’t believe it and neither can we.

Gigs can often be about putting on the biggest show, especially in a venue as large as the London one. It can become a contest to install the largest prop or travel the stage with the slickest choreography, but for one Wednesday night, it was just a barefoot LeAnn in a glitzy mesh dress holding a microphone.

At 41, she knows who she is, and what people come to see and is comfortable just singing for The Story… So Far tour. At one point, LeAnn simply repeatedly clicked her fingers into the microphone, and the sound echoed around the arena. I noticed the people surrounding me can’t help but smile at even the most low-key of moments.

With a four-piece band backing the country-pop music star up she took us on a whistlestop tour of her career for the one-off UK performance, from her debut studio album Blue, which was released in 1996, to almost the present day thanks to her 2022 LP, God’s Work.

LeAnn Rimes performed a one-off concert in London (Picture: Lorne Thomson/Redferns)

LeAnn needs just a microphone to entertain thousands (Picture: Lorne Thomson/Redferns)

The atmosphere reminded me of an intimate jazz bar with most people choosing to sit so they could concentrate on listening to her every word rather than standing to dance and belt out the lyrics. Of course, there was one big exception (more on that shortly). She somehow managed to make the giant venue feel intimate.

That is the power of LeAnn, who has sold over 48 million records worldwide and has managed to enter an exclusive group of artists who can still fill an arena decades after emerging on the scene. Reinvention is usually the way to go, but LeAnn is instead consistent with letting the voice do all the talking.

‘You’re going to want to be standing for this one,’ LeAnn commanded about mid-way through the show. A singular strum on the strings from the guitarist is instantly recognisable and we were all up on our feet.

They may not have been dancing on top of a bar like Violet Sanford in Coyote Ugly, but, instead, a sea of adults dressed in flannel shirts and cowboy boots forgot their responsibilities for three minutes and purely concentrated on nailing the hip swishes to Can’t Fight the Moonlight. Things have changed since its 2000 release date – health and safety would probably shut down Lil’s establishment for a start – but the song still feels as joyful to dance to as when the film was in the cinema.

Our only complaint was LeAnn’s habit of facing her microphone to the audience during her hit songs. We love our fellow fans, but they’re not quite at LeAnn’s level and it’s her we were there to listen to.

LeAnn’s show was joyful (Picture: Simone Joyner/Getty Images)

While the crowd is nostalgic for her old material, for LeAnn she seemed to feel most passionate performing her newer tracks. Sitting on a stool under a spotlight, she warned us there may be tears when she sings Awakening.

‘This is like therapy for me,’ she announced. Beginning recording music at 11 when most of us were only just learning how to make it through a day at school without requiring a parent, LeAnn had to grow up fast. LeAnn feels only now she understands how young she was. When her step-child Mason (husband Eddie Cibrian’s son), now 20, hit the age, she had a ‘sudden realisation’ and as a result, she’s working on reclaiming her inner child for missed time.

The declaration made the lyrics of Awakening feel even more personal. ‘There’s a stirring in the deep end of the waters and I’m summoning the spirits of my ghosts. So, it overflows, it overflows,’ she sang. As predicted, LeAnn became emotional but her voice is unwavering.

The foot-tapping is at a high during Right Kind of Wrong, and The Story with LeAnn admitting she had to google some of her song lyrics as it’s been so long since she originally released them. This is the problem with having success at every age, but the benefit is having so much to choose from when putting together her gigs.

Despite the plethora of options, she still made time to cover Chaka Khan’s I’m Every Woman, and Respect by Aretha Franklin, to give those who’d paid for tickets something unique to talk about.

LeAnn and Ronan transported us back to 2004 (Picture: LeannRimes/Instagram)

A 2004 hit got whoops of approval, largely thanks to the arrival of a very special guest – Ronan Keating. On their duet Last Thing on My Mind their voices blended together to create a romantic atmosphere.

Ronan has to go, but she’s not alone for long with her friend David Grey back to keep her company on Snow in Vegas, and his hit This Year’s Love, which was accompanied by a light show thanks to the illumination of everyone’s phone torches gently swaying. We’re left wondering how the latter has not yet been used in a John Lewis advert. They are missing a trick.

Back as a solo artist, LeAnn asked ‘How do I get through one night without you?’ while singing How Do I Live (we were asking ourselves how we coped six years without a UK performance), before concluding the evening by showing her five-octave range in Halluljah.

Hopefully, LeAnn doesn’t leave it so long next time because what kinda life would that be.

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