After taking a moment to encourage couples to get up on their feet and slow dance to his song, appropriately titled “Slow Dance,” John Legend paused to address the Hollywood Bowl crowd. “You go to a John Legend show, it’s an aphrodisiac, you know. It’s been known to happen, nine months later—you never know.”
Joking with the couples that he is just trying to make it as easy for them as possible, and not to mess it up, he acknowledged that he’s on stage, slow dancing by himself. He then told the crowd that he needed someone to join him on stage, and selected a lucky fan to not only dance with him, but also swoon while he serenaded her for the rest of the song.
Today, John Legend is a household name, recognized for his smooth voice, his EGOT status and as a judge on NBC’s The Voice. And Legend gets to do something not many artists can—tour the album that started it all 20 years later. The tour kicked off at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on Sunday, Sept. 28. The autumn weather combined with the venue’s scenic landscape allowed for a cozy night in Southern California.
Legend wasn’t just taking the crowd back to 2004 when “Get Lifted” came out; he was taking them back in time, through the milestones in his career.
John Legend performs at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on Sunday, Sep. 28, 2025. Legend is currently on his “Get Lifted – 20th Anniversary Tour,” celebrating his debut album.(Photo by Andy Holzman, Contributing Photographer)
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John Legend performs at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on Sunday, Sep. 28, 2025. Legend is currently on his “Get Lifted – 20th Anniversary Tour,” celebrating his debut album.(Photo by Andy Holzman, Contributing Photographer)
Legend opened his show with the title track “Let’s Get Lifted.” The stage design wasn’t flashy, Legend and his piano front and center, had only his band surrounding him. But this was intentional, as Legend doesn’t need the gimmicks to keep the crowd’s attention during his 2-hour show; his voice and talent kept the audience captivated the whole way through.
About halfway through the concert, Legend pivoted from his “Get Lifted” album into a musical journey of his work, starting with the gospel music he was raised on as he covered “Take My Hand, Precious Lord.”
“Sometimes our dreams get detoured, sometimes we need some lucky breaks along the way,” Legend told the audience. A fitting message for Los Angeles, a city full of dreamers, hoping to make their big break. “They say luck is when opportunity meets preparation. That means you need the right opportunities to come your way, but you’ve got to be ready when they come.”
Throughout his concert, he enlightened the crowd on his musical history that the everyday listener might not know. His big break was playing piano for Lauryn Hill’s “Everything is Everything,” he shared before treating the audience to the song. He was so eager to share with his classmates at the time that he played on “track 13,” as he called it, that they started referring to him as “track 13.”
He jumped forward in his timeline to his other collaborations with artists, joking how he was all over Kanye West’s album “The College Dropout” before anyone knew who he was, and how Snoop Dogg instantly knew he needed to be featured on “I Can Change.” Additionally, he worked with Alicia Keys, Jay-Z and Estelle, the latter of which wasn’t just a name drop moment like the other artists he listed. To the delight of the Hollywood Bowl crowd, Legend brought out the singer from across the pond to sing the song they worked together on, “American Boy.” It was a moment that got everyone up on their feet and singing along.
John Legend brings out Estelle to sing “American Boy” at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles during the first night of the “Get Lifted” 20th Anniversary Tour. Visit @The SoCal Local for more Southern California entertainment news. #johnlegend #hollywoodbowl #estelle #americanboy #losangeles
Estelle wasn’t the only surprise guest that Legend had in store for the Hollywood Bowl audience: he also brought out hip-hop duo Clipse to perform “The Birds Don’t Sing.” Additionally, he allowed his background vocalists to shine, as Keri Lee, Shenice Johnson and Natalie Imani covered “Let’s Do It Again” by The Staple Singers.
John Legend and members of his band take the stage at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on Sunday, Sep. 28, 2025. The show is part of his North American tour and celebrates the 20th anniversary of his album “Get Lifted.”(Photo by Andy Holzman, Contributing Photographer)
When performing “Ordinary People,” one of the most well-recognized singles from his debut album, Legend shared that the song was originally supposed to go another way. “It was supposed to be a Black Eyed Peas song, believe it or not.” He explained that the tune was going to be an R&B song with rap verses sprinkled in, but a couple of days later, he decided he wanted to keep the song for himself and wrote lyrics based on his family.
He highlighted his parents, who divorced when he was 10 years old, and after being divorced for a decade, decided they wanted to get back together. They went on to remarry, “storybook ending—until it wasn’t,” joked Legend. “So when I wrote about ordinary people that didn’t know which way to go, I was singing about my mom and my dad.”
Legend also mixed in some newer songs into the show, including “Like I’m Gonna Lose You,” the Meghan Trainor duet featuring Legend, and one of his most recognizable hits, “All of Me,” the ballad dedicated to his wife, Chrissy Teigen.
Speaking of his family, the Los Angeles crowd got a treat as Legend performed his pre-encore song “Green Light.” While walking around the pool circle, Legend jumped into the crowd to dance with his kids, Luna and Miles, much to their delight. As Legend put it, “Los Angeles, it’s good to be home.”
John Legend jumps into the crowd at the Hollywood Bowl to dance with his kids during the first night of the “Get Lifted” 20th Anniversary Tour in Los Angeles. Visit @The SoCal Local for more Southern California entertainment news. #johnlegend #getlifted #hollywoodbowl #losangeles #la
Legend closed out his show the same way he ended his debut album, by performing “Live It Up.” After getting the crowd up on their feet one last time, Legend got up from the piano to join them and take in the Hollywood Bowl ambience one last time before he took his bow.