Lady Gaga had no problem maneuvering through mic issues that plagued the beginning of her “Mayhem” in the desert showcase for Coachella weekend two. The singer’s head mic started glitching and cut off during “Abracadabra,” the second song of her headlining set on Friday night.
However, before descending towards center stage, Gaga slyly exchanged the broken equipment for a regular handheld mic. She continued through her choreography without missing a beat — holding the mic in one hand and a cane in the other. It took less than a few minutes for Gaga to emerge with a new head mic that went without issue for the remainder of the night.
Gaga later apologized for the malfunction while at the piano, telling festival-goers, “I’m sorry my mic was broken for a second… at least you know sing live.” She continued, “I guess all we can do is our best and I’m certainly giving you my best tonight.”
In a review, Variety‘s Chris Willman wrote of the weekend one performance, “The biggest difference between Gaga and some of the other performers at Coachella almost goes without saying: live singing.
Between the Go-Go’s wonderfully raw performance earlier in the day and Lady Gaga’s set, you could catch a lot of Memorex performances, switching YouTube channels in search of somebody putting a real voice on the line. You could pretty much anticipate that Gaga would not be miming (or at least not often), but it was still a pleasure to hear her lightly panting into the mic now and again, as if we needed proof she was delivering the goods al fresco.”
Creative directed in part with choreographer Parris Goebel, Gaga’s Coachella weekend two performance remained largely the same as weekend one. She will bring “Mayhem” on the road later this year with tour dates across North America, Europe and the U.K. set to kick off in July. This lineup also includes shows in Mexico, Brazil and Singapore.
