Adele should have been amazing at the Grammys. Her voice has never sounded better, her star has never been higher, her album is selling like crazy and this year’s Grammys were supposed to be part of her major comeback after a multi-year absence. But Adele’s performance ended up being one of the worst of the night. There were significant sound issues, and you could tell, in real time, that Adele was not happy with the way her performance went. Also, and maybe this is just a personal thing: I think she chose the wrong song to perform. “All I Ask” is not the strongest song from 25 by any stretch of the imagination. The day after the Grammys, Adele tweeted this:
The piano mics fell on to the piano strings, that's what the guitar sound was. It made it sound out of tune. Shit happens. X
— Adele (@Adele) February 16, 2016
Because of it though… I'm treating myself to an in n out. So maybe it was worth it.
— Adele (@Adele) February 16, 2016
But Adele didn’t just come to LA to blow it at the Grammys. She also brought her son to LA and they did a lot of fun sightseeing. And Adele stopped by The Ellen Show to talk about the Grammys performance and more. Adele explained the Grammys suckage: “Sound check was great. Went really well. I was really excited, and then during the changeover, the microphones fell onto the piano strings which is what the guitar noise was. Some people thought it was Bieber rehearsing, but it wasn’t him. We’re on great terms. And then it kind of put the whole thing off really.”
Adele admitted that when the mic fell, she “froze” and she basically makes it sound like the worst thing that’s ever happened to her during a live performance: “I was embarrassed. I woke up the next morning to people in England being like, ‘We still love you, don’t worry,’ and I was like, ‘I didn’t ask you if you still loved me, but thanks.’ I was so embarrassed. I cried pretty much all day yesterday. I kept like spontaneously bursting into tears yesterday. But it was alright. I was fine….I don’t feel like it could go that much worse than the Grammy’s, so I feel like I’m alright now.” She also tells an amazing story about taking her son to Disneyland. There were some pap photos of Adele, Simon and Angelo at Disneyland too – go here to see. Adele let Angelo dress as Anna from Frozen!!! Which is amazing.
Photos courtesy of Ellen’s Twitter, WENN, Fame/Flynet.
Girl, why? You still sounded better than Taylor Swift and she won everything.
I love her for letting her kiddo dress as his favorite character, no matter the gender. Way to go Adele!
God I love her attitude. She’s just awesome.
Really? Cause I kind of feel like it’s a bit of a dick move saying ‘I didn’t ask if you still loved me.’
I don’t always watch these videos, but when I read this transcript, I thought ‘I need to hear this in context’ and yep, still sounded rude.
I can’t imagine anyone of Adele’s status asking ‘Do you still love me?’
Come on now, love. Take those comments as they were intended.
Really! I do!
I took that whole “still love you” exchange as her saying, “whoa guys, I know I messed up but not loving me anymore was an option?”
Like if I gained ten pounds, and my husband said to me, “it’s OK, I won’t leave you”. ” whoa, who said anything about leaving me!? ”
I didn’t see it as rude at all, just funny.
i love her, but those brows need to be one shade lighter IMO.
they’re taking over her face/look. And I miss the cat-eye being the center of attention lol
They need to be thinner as well. They’re very Lily Collins.
Thinner? No, no, no! The thicker the better! I always tell my eyebrow lady to clean them up but keep them as thick as possible!
I really like her brows. They shape her face very nicely.
LOVE her.
Personally, I thought she was amazing. Her singing brought me to tears and I thought she sang her soul off(out?) It was a beautiful, live performance, in my opinion. I guess I’m glad I can’t hear it like she did.
She didn’t sound that bad, she looked a bit panicked but it shows how untouched by criticism she has been that this upsets her SO much. She really has no idea how lucky she is to have almost blanket praise when she so much as farts!!!! I love her, she’s amazing, but keep it real!
i know im gonna get Adele bots after me for that comment but my opinion, K?!!!
I was thinking the same thing! We all know her voice is flawless and we could tell there was a problem with the sound, it wasn’t her fault. She’s just not used to getting criticism I think.
Agree also. Little over the top to cry at the drop of a hat the next day.
It may seem over the top, but Adele suffers from pre-peformance anxiety badly. I really do not think she is pulling a “woe is me” here. Imagine you already have stage fright and then experience that… live at the Grammy’s. We’d all be upset and embarrassed for another day or two. Especially since people are still talking about it. Now if she keeps mentioning it in the coming days by all means side-eye away.
Yes, and also, the mic issue wasn’t responsible for her failing to hit her high notes. She is still yelling when singing and straining her voice. It hurts my throat (in sympathy) when I listen to some of her songs. With all her $$, she needs to get a competent voice teacher who teaches her to STOP YELLING in her songs or her career will be short-lived.
Agreed. My sister is a voice teacher and expressed a similar sentiment about the chronic straining. Didn’t Adele have vocal chord surgery a couple years ago? Her approach can’t be helping matters.
That must be a performer’s worst nightmare. I feel for her, but I hope she knows that everyone knows it was a fluke. She’s proven herself and her voice a million times over, and deserves all the success she has.
Also, I agree that song wasn’t the best choice.
I loved that interview. Honest and funny and charming. (acknowledging that she’s pitchy sometimes was really refreshing coming from a singer like her.
Yea, the sound thing sucks-but I think she did a good job overcoming it.
Im really surprised at how great and unique her sense of humour is, especially for someone at her fame & talent level. Kind of dark, kind of self depricating, kind of unapologetic, kind of eccentric, I just love it, lol.
I think Americans find it ‘unique’ but she has the same sense of humor as most UK/Irish people which is to be quite self deprecating and sarcastic. She’s really not much different to alot of people i know – minus the talent and money of course!!
she really has a gorgeous face.
That header photo with Ellen makes her look skinnty!
Bless her. She’s totally right, shit happens. It was an accident, by any means her fault, and she remained gracious as ever in the aftermath. Her talent is still indisputable.
Finally watching the performance was very anticlimactic after all of this drama… Now I just feel tricked into listening through a whole Adele song (don’t kill me).
Lainey posted Adele’s Jamba Juice prank.
so funny! not as good as her Jenny prank, but shows that Adele has a lot of self restraint to keep a straight face. she should really do an SNL skit! her comedic timing is gold!
Maybe Rihanna’s freakout was not so freaky after all.
You would think a MUSIC awards show could get their sound together!
I just absolutely love Adele as a human being. Effortlessly cool in a nontryhard-to-be-hip way. She’s so unpretentious.
For me, 25 is very front-loaded; the best songs are at the beginning of the album and it peters out towards the end with the exception of the stellar Sweetest Devotion book-ending the record. All I Ask is one of those songs at the end that I don’t even really remember in comparison to earworms like When We Were Young, Send Your Love, and Water Under the Bridge.
I think she got extremely nervous after the audio problem so she went off the rails and started getting flat and out of key. I saw a meme on Twitter about Jazmine Sullivan watching the pitchy performance and I felt bad for laughing. She’s still a great singer even if I don’t understand why people act as if her music is the best thing since sliced bread.
Jazmine is on ” Live with Kelly and Michael “right now.
Adele is very open about her pre-performance stage fright. It is severe enough that she’s vomited and attempted to leave venues, and that performance was probably as bad for her as it could be. Everyone was looking forward to her performance and considered it a bit of a comeback after three years. Add that she is singing in front of the best of her peers and millions tuning in…. I’m not surprised it upset her so much. Let’s hope she can move past like she seems to be, because it would be terrible if this made her performance anxiety even worse.
Yeah, it’s over the top to be crying all day because she didn’t sound awful or anything. It was the song choice that was bad, it was boring.
Even while not at her usual flawless caliber, it didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the performance, and it was imo still eons ahead of Tay-Tay’s opening number in the leotard. This will be a soon-forgotten blip on what will continue to be an illustrious career for Adele.
Love Adele but for some reason I love Justin Bieber’s album more than 25. And thought he had on of the best performances of the night… Love Yourself was just him and his guitar and he sounded so clear and open. Especially after Adele also had a similar set up and sounded tight and flat. Hate that I keep coming back to this connection but for some reason JB >Adele.
Adele handles herself graciously. She’s like the Anti-Kanye.
Sometimes I feel like a cuckoo bird but, I feel like Adele’s voice has become weaker, her songs all sound the same now, and she’s lost the power she once had to make me really feel things. Her new album is a lot more generic than 19 and 21, IMO. I dunno … I like her, but I feel that she deserved the massive heaps of praise and idolatry years ago, not so much now?