Khalid and Lewis Capaldi are first confirmed acts for Abu Dhabi F1 concerts

We called it yesterday…

In keeping with tradition, the Yas Marina Circuit (YMC) Instagram account has just dropped a series of clues teasing us about who the artists for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix after-race concerts might be.

Though there was a very intimate collection of spectators at the 2020 races (mainly frontline workers), there were no after-race parties. We were deep in the pre-vaccine pandemic era, and gatherings like that were just not on the agenda.

The live ‘Yasalam’ concerts featuring A-List musicians (seriously, Eminem and Beyonce were previous headliners) are back for 2021 though, taking place on the evenings of race days, which this year fall between December 9 to 12.

This time around, the YMC clues are coming in the form of album artwork (in 2019, the clues were released in the form of crosswords) — with the title, face of the star and name photoshopped out. Otherwise, it would have been considerably less of a challenge.

The first image immediately stirred all sorts of latent memories in the What’s On team “it’s what’s his face” we hear from the corner of our office “who did the thing”, a largely unhelpful shower of vaguery — but it doesn’t matter, because within seconds Lauren had correctly identified it as the cover art for Khalid’s 2018 LP, Suncity.

You may know Khalid from such melodic electro R&B bangers as ‘Better’, ‘Eastside’, ’18’ and ‘Love Lies’. He’s amassed six Grammy nominations, six Billboard Music Awards, three American Music Awards and an MTV Video Music Award. And we cannot wait to see him perform in Abu Dhabi for the first time. Probably.

Sep 29 edit: It has now been confirmed that Khalid will be headling the after-race concert on Thursday, December 9, 2021. Only open to people holding two day and three day Tickets for F1.

Up next, the mysterious red clouds barely had time to settle on our screen before Elise screamed “Lewis Capaldi, it’s Lewis Capaldi”. And it was – the cheeky Scot, brings the talented singer-song writer count up to two for these Yasalam concerts.

Capaldi, likely to be the second most famous ‘Lewis’ at this F1 (sorry) has a collection of soulful ballads about love lost and love found that have earned him a string of international number ones. Tracks like ‘Someone You Loved’, ‘Before You Go’, ‘Bruises’ and ‘Hold Me While You Wait’ have featured in films and as the soundtrack to real-life break ups, but are almost overshadowed by the singer’s hilarious and sparkling social media presence. See you soon Lewis, we’re pretty sure.

Sep 29 edit: It has now been confirmed that Lewis Capaldi will be headling the after-race concert on Saturday, December 11, 2021. Only open to people holding two day, three day and Saturday tickets for F1.

The fun is not done yet, there are more headliner names ready to drop very very soon.

Images: Instagram