Gloria World Tour
Tour by Sam Smith
Associated albumGloria
Start dateMarch 12, 2023 (2023-03-12)
End dateNovember 11, 2023 (2023-11-11)
Legs3
No. of shows28 in Europe
31 in North America
7 in Oceania
66 in total
Supporting act(s)
Sam Smith concert chronology

Sam Smith

edit

Samuel Frederick Smith (born 19 May 1992) is an English singer and songwriter. In October 2012, they featured on Disclosure's breakthrough single "Latch", which peaked at number eleven on the UK Singles Chart. They were featured on Naughty Boy's "La La La", which became a number one single in May 2013. In December 2013, Smith was nominated for the 2014 Brit Critics' Choice Award and the BBC's Sound of 2014 poll, winning both.

Smith's debut studio album, In the Lonely Hour, was released in May 2014 on Capitol Records UK. The album's lead single, "Lay Me Down", was released prior to "La La La". The album's second single, "Money on My Mind", became their second number one single in the UK. The third single, "Stay with Me", was internationally successful, reaching number one in the UK and number two on the US Billboard Hot 100, while subsequent singles "I'm Not the Only One" and "Like I Can" reached the top ten in the UK. The album won four awards, at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards, including Best Pop Vocal Album, Best New Artist, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and nominations for Album of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance.

For Smith's and Jimmy Napes's song "Writing's on the Wall", the theme for the James Bond film Spectre (2015), they won the Golden Globe Award and the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Smith's second studio album, The Thrill of It All, was released in November 2017 and debuted atop the UK and US album charts. The lead single, "Too Good at Goodbyes", reached number one in the UK and Australia and number four in the US. Following the 2018 single "Promises" with Calvin Harris, which peaked at number one in the UK, Smith released "Dancing with a Stranger" with Normani in 2019, which reached the top ten in the UK and the US and was nominated for Song of the Year at the 2020 Brit Awards; and later "How Do You Sleep?", all of which feature on their third album, Love Goes (2020). In 2022, Smith's single "Unholy" with Kim Petras, from Smith's fourth album Gloria (2023), became their first number one single in the US and won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.

Smith's achievements include five Grammy Awards, three Brit Awards, three Billboard Music Awards, and an American Music Award, as well as a Golden Globe and an Academy Award. Smith is the first openly non-binary musician to both release a song that reached No. 1 at the Billboard Hot 100 and to win a Grammy Award.

Background

edit

Samuel Frederick Smith was born in London on 19 May 1992, to Frederick Smith and broker Kate Cassidy. Smith grew up in Great Chishill, where they attended Thomas More Primary School. They were bullied for having breasts as a child and underwent liposuction at age 12. As part of Youth Music Theatre UK, Smith appeared in the troupe's 2007 production of Oh! Carol, a musical featuring the music of Neil Sedaka. Before entering the musical theatre, they had been in jazz bands. While studying singing and songwriting under jazz pianist Joanna Eden for a number of years, Smith attended St Mary's Catholic School in Bishop's Stortford and was a member of the Bishop's Stortford Junior Operatics (now Bishops Stortford Musical Theatre Society) and the Cantate Youth Choir. Smith attended the Anglican St Mary the Virgin, Saffron Walden, with family members, as a youth.

Album

edit

Gloria In January 2019, Smith released the song "Dancing with a Stranger" with Normani as a single and it reached the top ten in the UK, the US and other countries. In February, Smith performed a medley of songs alongside Calvin Harris, Rag'n'Bone Man and Dua Lipa at the 2019 Brit Awards held at the O2 Arena in London. On 6 July 2019, New 102.7 radio host Mike Adam announced the song "How Do You Sleep?" on their Twitter account. On 9 July 2019, Smith posted on social media that an announcement would be made the following day. The pre-order link became active on 10 July, and later the same day, they formally announced and shared a clip of the song.

In October 2019, in an interview with The Zach Sang Show, Smith expressed excitement about their upcoming record. The singer also confirmed that their newest offering will feature fewer ballads and plenty of poppier tracks in the vein of their recent two previous singles. "I feel like I have recently shown a side of me which I normally keep to myself or for my family and friends," Smith told Sang. "I showed everyone it and everyone loved it. It's almost given me permission to kinda do what I've always dreamed of doing but I was always scared to do, which is pop music." The singer also described having been spurred on to write new music following a 2018 collaboration with Calvin Harris, "Promises". "I just naturally started getting back into the studio and started to write," they said. "I caught this wind and started riding this wave and I haven't stopped writing since."

On 13 February 2020, Smith revealed that a third studio album, then titled To Die For, was scheduled to be released on 1 May. On 30 March, Smith announced that, due to the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, they would be delaying the release of their third album and would include a number of changes to the album track list and the title, as they would continue to work on it. However, they did state that it would still be released sometime within 2020. "I'm Ready", a collaboration with American singer Demi Lovato was released on 16 April and charted well in the top 40 of several countries. On 6 July, Smith released their cover of Coldplay's "Fix You". They had originally performed the song earlier in May for the iHeartRadio Living Room Series. On 17 September, they released a new single, "Diamonds", and then announced the new title for their third album, Love Goes, which was released on 30 October. On 29 September they announced that they would be performing a livestream concert on 30 October from Abbey Road Studios in London, their only live performance of 2020. The concert featured guest appearances by British actress Jade Anouka on "My Oasis" and singer Labrinth on "Love Goes", and included a cover version of "Time After Time", which drew praise from the song's original singer and writer Cyndi Lauper. The concert was recorded and released as a live album, Love Goes: Live at Abbey Road Studios, on 19 March 2021. The same year, Smith recorded a cover of "You Will Be Found", in collaboration with Summer Walker, for the soundtrack album of the 2021 film adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen. Their version of the song also plays during the closing credits of the film itself.

On 25 August 2022, Smith announced that they had collaborated with German singer Kim Petras on a song titled "Unholy", with Petras calling it "the best song" she has been part of. The first single from Smith's fourth studio album Gloria, it reached number one in the UK, the US (Smith's first US chart topper), Australia and other markets. The song made Smith and Petras the first openly non-binary and first openly transgender musicians, respectively, to release a song that reached No. 1 at the Billboard Hot 100.

On 18 November, Smith released the single "Night Before Christmas", which was added to their EP The Holly & the Ivy.

Gloria was released on 27 January 2023, garnering generally favourable reviews from critics.

On February 6, 2023, Smith and Petras won the Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for "Unholy". This made Smith the first openly non-binary artist to win a Grammy Award, and Petras the first openly transgender artist to win a major-category Grammy.

Setlist

edit
  1. Stay With Me
  2. I'm Not the Only One
  3. Like I Can
  4. Nirvana
  5. Too Good at Goodbyes
  6. To Die For
  7. Perfect
  8. How Do You Sleep?
  9. Dancing With a Stranger (feat. Normani)
  10. I'm Kissing You (cover by Des’ree)
  11. Lay Me Down
  12. Love Goes
  13. Gimme
  14. Lose You
  15. Promises (feat. Calvin Harris)
  16. I'm Not Here to Make Friends
  17. Latch (feat. Disclosure)
  18. I Feel Love (cover by Donna Summer)
  19. Restart
Encore
  1. Gloria
  2. Human Nature (cover by Madonna)
  3. Unholy (feat. Kim Petras)

Shows

edit
List of concerts, showing date, city, country, venue, opening acts, tickets sold, number of available tickets and amount of gross revenue
Date (2023) City Country Venue Opening acts Attendance Revenue
Europe
April 12 Sheffield England Sheffield Arena Cat Burns 2,800 / 2,800 $224,000
April 14 Dublin Ireland 3Arena 14,514 / 16,000 $1,161,120
April 15
April 18 London England The O2 Arena 28,486 / 32,000 $2,278,880
April 19
April 29 Copenhagen Denmark Royal Arena
May 1 Berlin Germany Mercedes-Benz Arena
May 4 Stockholm Sweden Avicii Arena
May 6 Oslo Norway Oslo Spektrum
May 8 Cologne Germany Lanxess Arena
May 9 Amsterdam Netherlands Ziggo Dome
May 12 Antwerp Belgium Sportpaleis
May 13 Paris France Accor Arena
May 16 Zurich Switzerland Hallenstadion
May 18 Vienna Austria Wiener Stadthalle
May 20 Bologna Italy Unipol Arena
May 21 Turin Pala Alpitour
May 24 Manchester England AO Arena
May 25[a] Glasgow Scotland OVO Hydro
May 27[b] Birmingham England Resorts World Arena
June 1[c] Tel Aviv Israel Hayarkon Park
June 3[d] Warsaw Poland Służewiec Racetrack
June 4[e] Bucharest Romania Piața Constituției
June 6[f] Madrid Spain Nuevo Espacio
June 8[g] Algés Portugal Passeio Marítimo de Algés
June 9[h] Pori Finland Kirjurinluoto
June 10[i] Nîmes France Arènes de Nîmes
June 15[j] Riga Latvia Lucavsala
North America
July 25 Miami United States Kaseya Center Jessie Reyez
July 26 Orlando Amway Center
July 28 Duluth Gas South Arena
July 29 Nashville Bridgestone Arena
August 1 Raleigh PNC Arena
August 2 Philadelphia Wells Fargo Center
August 4 Washington D.C Capital One Arena
August 5 Boston TD Garden
August 8 New York Madison Square Garden
August 9
August 11 Toronto Canada Scotiabank Arena
August 12 Montreal Centre Bell
August 15 Chicago United States United Center
August 16 Saint Paul Xcel Energy Center
August 18 Denver Ball Arena
August 19 Salt Lake City Vivint Arena
August 22 Vancouver Canada Rogers Arena
August 23 Seattle United States Climate Pledge Arena
August 25 Portland Veterans Memorial Coliseum
August 27 Oakland Oakland Arena
August 28 San Francisco Chase Center
August 31 Inglewood Kia Forum
September 1
September 3 Phoenix Footprint Center
September 5 Austin Moody Center
September 7 Fort Worth Dickies Arena
September 8 Houston Toyota Center
September 11 Monterrey Mexico Arena Monterrey
September 12
September 14 Mexico City Palacio de los Deportes
September 15
Oceania
October 28 Adelaide Australia Adelaide Entertainment Centre
October 31 Melbourne Rod Laver Arena
November 1
November 3 Sydney Qudos Bank Arena
November 4
November 8 Brisbane Brisbane Entertainment Centre
November 11 Auckland New Zealand Spark Arena

Notes

edit
  1. ^ The Glasgow concert was to be held on April 22 but was moved due to crew illines
  2. ^ The Birmingham concert was to be held on April 25 but was moved due to crew illines
  3. ^ Part of the 2023 Summer in the City
  4. ^ Part of the 2023 Orange Warsaw Festival
  5. ^ Part of the 2023 Summer in the City
  6. ^ Part of the 2023 Mad Cool Festival
  7. ^ Part of the 2023 NOS Alive
  8. ^ Part of the 2023 Pori Jazz
  9. ^ Part of the 2023 Festival de Nîmes
  10. ^ Part of the 2023 Positivus Festival