Adele's highly-anticipated Grammy performance marred by sound issues  (2024)

It was supposed to be her triumphant return to the Grammys after a four-year career break.

But Adele's bigmoment was marred by sound issues after a microphone fell onto the strings of an accompanying piano during her set on Monday night.

Academy President Neil Portnow also said that the show switched to a backup sound system during Adele's song which caused the audio to drop for a few seconds at the beginning of her performance.

Thetechnicalglitch came on a night plagued with disappointment and drama - Rihanna cancelled her performance on doctor's orders just minutes before the show began, while Lauryn Hill bailed on a planned duet with The Weeknd earlier in the day.

Despite winning three Grammys even triumphant Taylor Swift was disappointed - shedding a tear after missing a note during her Out Of The Woods opening act.

The sound issues did not stop with Adele - with Bieber's set also beset with problems.

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CBS also had some major problems at the start of the show, with host Shad Moss (aka Bow Wow) announcing that the ceremony was beginning prematurely ontwooccasions.

The star of CBS' CSI Cyber was in the audience chatting with Selena Gomez and promoting the night's big acts when he announced the start of the show - over a minute too early.

He then realized his mistake and began to ad-lib, then announced the start of the show again - 30 seconds too early.

Soon after CBS cutaway from him for the 20 seconds before the show.

There was also a bit of an issue for Gwen Stefani during her live music video for Make Me Like You which aired during the show when he body double took a tumble while rollerskating.

CBS was not just having sound problems either, with their livestream not working for some at the start of the night.

'Some users experienced temporary difficulty accessing the live online feed of the Grammys. Our location services provider had a brief issue verifying user location.

'That issue has since been resolved and all users are back online,' said a spokesperson for CBS Interactive.

Despite this, many were still complaining about getting on the livestream during the show.

In what appears to have been a sound issue as well, Bruno Mars was seen celebrating moments before he was announced as the Record of the Year winner for Uptown Funk.

But it was Adele'sdisappointingperformance that really riled viewers, many of whom had tuned inspecificallyto watch her much-trailed comeback

The singer's powerful voice cut out shortly after she launched into singing her hit All I Ask at the event in Los Angeles.

As fans raced to adjust the volume on their TV sets, Adele could be seen singing, but only the misplaced sound of what appeared to be a guitar was heard.

Even after Adele's voice resumed, the volume wavered, before it eventuallystabilized after five to six seconds.

Adele took to Twitter to explain the disruption with a rare tweet.

'The piano mics fell on to the piano strings, that's what the guitar sound was,' explained the star in a rare tweet after the show.

'It made it sound out of tune. S*** happens.'

Rather than wallowing, Adele then consoled herself with a burger - surely a rare treat for the newly slimline star.

'Because of it though... I'm treating myself to an in n out,' she wrote. 'So maybe it was worth it.'

During her set Adele could be seen briefly reacting to the sound issues, her eyes opening wide.

But ever the professional, she kept singing - although fans detected that the usually pitch perfect star seemed slightly off her game.

Indeed it was only after she returned to the audience that Adele let her true feelings show - at which point thedistraughtlooking star was seen animatedly discussing the errors with her partner Simon Konecki.

As she did so her followers were taking to Twitter in their hundreds to rant about the mistake - with many wrongly blaming Justin Bieber's sound check for the strange guitar-like noise.

Singer Nichole Nordeman wrote: 'Adele's pitch is consistently & historically flawless. FLAWLESS. That was 100% an audio issue & she was fighting hard from go. Hush, ya'll.'

And Mia Farrow commented: 'I can't say a negative thing about Adele's performance she's a goddess it was the f:#£ng piano.'

As they typed, Bieber was struggling with sometechnicalglitches of his own.

As he finished his first acoustic song Love Yourself, he jumped off the stage and launched into Where Are You Now.

But the sound appeared to briefly drop out, before his voice was again heard. Throughout his set fans detected various minor sound glitches.

A CBS spokesperson confirmed there was a five-to-eight second technical issue with the broadcast, adding without elaboration that it was outside the network's control.

Meanwhile Rihanna was forced to pull out of her planned performance at the 11th hour due to a throat infection, after her doctors ordered her to rest her voice for 48 hours or risk the hemorrhaging of her vocal cords.

The 27-year-old, an eight-time Grammy winner, had been slated to perform her song Kiss It Better, from her new album, Anti, which was released in January after the cutoff period for this year's Grammy eligibility.

But, after a medical examination following Monday's rehearsal, doctors decided she should drop out of the show because she was 'at risk of hemorrhaging her vocal chords,' her publicist said in the statement read by Grammy organizers to reporters backstage.

'The antibiotics she had been on for three days did not kill the infection adequately. Therefore she cannot perform safely,' the statement said.

Lauryn Hill also cancelled her expected performance with The Weeknd, with her reps accusing the Grammy organisers of jumping the gun.

'The Grammy’s announced a performance by Ms. Lauryn Hill prematurely and without approval. Ms Hill had concerts all weekend, leaving no time to prepare, and was uncertain she would even be able to make it to LA in time to rehearse for the event,' her rep said in a statement to Billboard.

'Any performance that could have happened was never confirmed, and should not have been advertised as such. Ms. Hill was invited to do a collaboration with an artist she appreciates. The performance was intended to be a surprise and unfortunately due to its last minute nature, was unable to come to fruition.'