Lady Gaga suffered major technical issues that threatened to ruin her headlining set on Friday night at Coachella.
The 39-year-old pop superstar was just getting started with her week-two performance at the popular music festival when her microphone suddenly malfunctioned.
It couldn’t have come at a worse time, as she was suspended far above the stage in a structure designed to look like an dress, forcing her to wait to get a replacement mic.After an expressionistic Act I opening with Bloody Mary that went off without a hitch, Gaga showed off her new material with her recent single Abracadabra, which was featured on her latest LP Mayhem.
But the energy suddenly plummeted as the singer’s headset microphone, which blended in with her chic black bob, began to crackle ominously.
As Gaga — born Stefani Germanotta — began to tweak the microphone, she managed to get it working again, but the crackling increased and her voice began cutting out for long sections.She proved she was a pro by continuing to sing and perform her choreography, even if only the backing vocals were making it through to audience members.
After disappearing into the tall skirt structure, Gaga emerged again at the bottom as the skirt opened like curtains to reveal her.
Now she had ditched the headset microphone and was instead performing with a much clunkier handheld microphone that kept her from fully performing her dance routines, though she still did as much as she was able to.Compounding the poor timing of the technical difficulties were the fact that they happened not just at the start of her set, but during highly anticipated tunes.
Gaga was forced to continue using her handheld microphone into the next song, Judas, which reached number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 2011, when it was released as part of her Born This Way album.
The hitmaker hadn’t performed the song live since 2019, and her week-one Coachella performance marked the first live version of it in six years.
The microphone issue still wasn’t fixed as she moved into the following song, 2011’s Scheiße, which was also featured on Born This Way.
Luckily, she had several dance breaks built in that freed her up to use both arms without worrying about the clunky microphone.
