Twenty-five years after Anastacia first announced herself with the unmistakable sound of “I’m Outta Love”, there was something fitting about seeing her back at Wembley on Saturday night. Her #NTK 2026 tour is built around the 25th anniversary of her debut album, Not That Kind, and the return to OVO Arena Wembley marked her first headline appearance at the venue since 2004.
From the moment Anastacia walked on stage, it was clear that this was never going to be a nostalgia exercise alone. Yes, the evening was packed with songs that have soundtracked the lives of millions, but the performance had an energy and confidence that made the show feel firmly rooted in the present.
Opening with “One Day in Your Life”, she immediately put that famously huge voice front and centre. There is still something extraordinary about hearing Anastacia live. Her voice has always possessed a distinctive combination of grit, soul and sheer force, and in the confines of Wembley Arena it filled every corner of the room. “Staring at the Sun” and “Paid My Dues” kept the momentum moving, before “Nobody Loves Me Better” and “Don’tcha Wanna” demonstrated just how naturally her catalogue lends itself to a big live production.
The set was not afraid to have fun either. A medley featuring “I Like It Like That”, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Barbie Girl” gave the band a chance to step into the spotlight, while another sequence brought together “Vogue”, “This Is How We Do” and “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)”. Rather than feeling like filler between the major hits, these moments helped give the concert the sense of a genuine celebration.
The emotional centre of the evening arrived when the pace slowed. “Heavy on My Heart”, “You’ll Never Be Alone” and “Overdue Goodbye” brought a more vulnerable side of Anastacia to the fore, before the acoustic section stripped things back further. “How Come the World Won’t Stop”, “Welcome to My Truth” and “Wishing Well” allowed the voice itself to become the focus, without the need for spectacle around it.
Then came the rockier stretch of the evening. A band performance of Free’s “All Right Now” led into Anastacia’s spirited take on Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child o’ Mine”, followed by “Boxer” and, inevitably, “Left Outside Alone”. The latter arrived with a dramatic Led Zeppelin “Kashmir” introduction and demonstrated precisely why Anastacia has remained such a compelling live performer: she can move effortlessly from pop powerhouse to rock vocalist without ever sounding as though she is trying to prove anything.
The encore was almost inevitable. “Not That Kind” brought the evening back to where this tour began conceptually, before “I’m Outta Love” delivered the moment everyone had been waiting for. By then, the audience was doing almost as much singing as Anastacia herself, and the atmosphere had the communal quality of a greatest-hits party rather than simply another arena concert. The night ultimately ended with the crowd continuing the “Left Outside Alone” chorus, a fitting final reminder of just how deeply these songs have embedded themselves in the audience’s memory.
What made the Wembley show work was the balance. Anastacia gave the audience the hits they had come to hear, but she did not allow the evening to become trapped in 2000s nostalgia. The covers, band showcases, acoustic performances and newer material gave the set room to breathe, while the familiar songs provided the enormous singalong moments an anniversary tour demands.
There is also something wonderfully unpretentious about Anastacia as a live performer. She knows exactly what the audience wants, but she does not simply stand back and let the songs do the work. She throws herself into them, leaning into the rockier material and allowing the more intimate songs to expose a different side of her performance. Most importantly, that remarkable voice remains the centre of everything.
Twenty-five years on from Not That Kind, Anastacia’s music has lost none of its capacity to fill an arena. Saturday night’s Wembley performance was a celebration of longevity, resilience and, above all, songs that have endured. The biggest compliment is perhaps the simplest one: when “I’m Outta Love” finally arrived, nobody in the room seemed remotely ready for the night to end.
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