POP legend Anastacia plays Cardiff’s St David’s Hall as part of her forthcoming The Ultimate Collection tour this weekend.
With over 30 million worldwide sales to her name, the 48-year-old US singer-songwriter will perform all her greatest hits including I’m Outta Love, Not That Kind, Left Outside Alone. There will also be tracks from her latest album A 4 App, a collection of non-album singles, B-Sides and unreleased tracks that will be performed live during the current tour.
Anastacia recently told Andy Howells,
“What I did at the beginning of the Ultimate Collection tour (was) create an app which ironically has now become a live album,”
“All my stuff turns into this creative project which starts as a wild idea in my head and turns into one of the most amazing projects I’ve ever worked on.”
Through the A 4 App Anastacia has given her fans the chance to choose which songs they’d like to hear and vote for a song 24 hours prior to each concert. The most popular song each night is then added to the setlist.
Anastacia continues,
“It’s exciting to be able to share these songs (of which) none are hits. I just did a survey on social media asking, “ I want you to hashtag favourite song and put what you want me to sing whether it was on an album or a b side or whatever.”
The app has also allowed Anastacia to rediscover some of her older material.
“There’s 7 or 8 of those songs I’d say I never sung until I got on stage. I read the lyrics and go “Oh, what do I sing here? What’s the second verse?” There’s a brief memory of the song, I kind of remember it, but “Wow! This is really good!”
“I have been a fan of many B Sides in my past that I’ve loved more than the single.. Sometimes when a record company chooses songs, they pick singles and it’s not something we necessarily understand as artists. The true artist in us thinks this is awesome but there’s so much character in it that’s why the fans are guided to it as well.”
Last autumn, Anastacia, took part in the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing and announced a partnership with Cancer Research UK, making a personal donation to the charity during her time on the show to help fund more into breast cancer research. Anastacia became injured during the rehearsals and bravely demonstrated the ordeals women can face.
“I was trying to raise awareness for women and breast cancer,” she recalls, “Just getting it out there and been a survivor myself, having my own altered states of my body, the best way to do it was to keep it real. That is my motto in life.”
Anastacia is glad to be back on tour, resuming The Ultimate Collection shows she began prior to appearing on Strictly..
“I chat to my fans. We are fully engaged, I have fans who come over and over to each show and they remind me that never have they come to a show where I do the same thing twice.
“I don’t always stick to the set lists. I may tell them about something that happened that day, it just adds to the show being real. I love what I do, so there’s an absolute inner joy that comes from me, even though I’ve been doing it for so long.”