Dua Lipa played a special show at London’s Royal Albert Hall last night and took the opportunity to bring out Elton John for a performance of the pair’s hit single “Cold Heart.” The collaboration came towards the end of Dua’s lengthy set, which previewed her upcoming Radical Optimism Tour.
The pair were joined by a live band, back-up singers, and an orchestra, who accompanied the entire concert, and John sang his parts on the single while seated in a chair.
Dua largely performed her album cuts, including recent songs “Houdini” and “Training Season,” but she also showcased her Barbie single, “Dance the Night,” live for the first time. She was joined by a group of dancers performing the choreography from Greta Gerwig’s movie.
Dua Lipa will kick off her Radical Optimism Tour next month in Singapore. The world tour is set to travel to Asia this winter before heading to Australia and New Zealand in March and April and to Europe in May. The North American leg commences next September in Toronto and wraps in October in Seattle.
“They said they ‘miss 2022 Dua,’” Lipa wrote on social media, sharing a montage of footage from her past tours, when she announced the tour. “Well I’ll be hauling ass for the foreseeable and I can’t wait to bring this show to you!!”
Lipa released Radical Optimism in May 2024, her first full-length album since her 2020 LP, Future Nostalgia, which she took on the road in 2022.
“I think people are quick to forget. I was on tour up until the end of December. I felt like I missed out on so much time with my family and friends. It shows how short our attention span is, which is why music comes out so much faster,” she told Rolling Stone earlier this year. “You make the album, you promote it, you go on tour, you do the same thing, and that’s so amazing, but I think there’s going to come a point where maybe I want to take just a little bit longer [in between]… I have all these other things that I can also do that really interest me.”
Dua Lipa and John released “Cold Heart” in 2021 as part of John’s album The Lockdown Sessions. The duo previously performed it live at John’s big North American send-off at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles in 2022. Dua surprisingly didn’t join John onstage for the song during his Glastonbury headlining set last summer.
