Adele website 'crashes' as singer announces BST Hyde Park London shows for 2022 - which will be her first in five years

Adele has announced she will perform in London in 2022 in what will be her first live shows in five years - with some fans reporting her website has "crashed" already before the tickets are even on sale.

The 33-year-old singer, whose high-profile comeback single Easy On Me broke records when it debuted at number one last week, with the highest first-week streams of any track in chart history, will play at Hyde Park in July.

Adele shared the news on Twitter and Instagram on Tuesday morning with a simple "Oiii Oiiiiiiiiiiiii" message signposting fans to register for a presale on her website.

However, within an hour of the star's message, many fans were saying they had been unable to register for the presale on Thursday, such was demand, and some getting a "currently unavailable - please try again later" message.

"How am I supposed to get Adele tickets when I've been trying to sign up to presale since 8.30am," one fan posted after more than an hour of trying.

"Given how difficult I've just found it to sign up for the presale for Adele's London concert, I'm not holding out much hope for actually getting tickets, but, well, SO EXCITIIIIINNNGGG," said another.

"Spent nearly an hour trying to sign up to @Adele presale and it just won't let me," another fan posted.

Adele will play at Hyde Park on 1 and 2 July 2022 as part of next year's BST Hyde Park festival, which will also feature performances from Sir Elton John, Duran Duran and Pearl Jam. The festival returns after being forced to cancel in 2020 and 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Easy On Me, released on 15 October, is on track to top the UK single charts for a second week, the Official Charts Company said on Sunday, and the star's album, 30, will no doubt top the charts when it is released in November.

The singer has marked her comeback with two high-profile interviews in the British and American editions of Vogue, in which she spoke candidly about her split from her ex-husband, charity boss husband Simon Konecki, in 2019.

She said she made the record for her son, Angelo. "I just felt like I wanted to explain to him, though this record, when he's in his 20s or 30s, who I am and why I voluntarily chose to dismantle his entire life in the pursuit of my own happiness," she said.

"It made him really unhappy sometimes. And that's a real wound for me that I don't know if I'll ever be able to heal."

Adele will also be interviewed by Oprah Winfrey as part of a two-hour special called One Night Only on US network CBS on 14 November.

Tickets for her Hyde Park gigs will be on general sale from 30 October, while the presale starts on 28 October at 10am.