Grimes apologises after disastrous Coachella performance

The singer repeatedly screamed in frustration as her Coachella performance spectacularly failed – now, she’s explained what went wrong.

Singer Grimes has issued a public apology after a disastrous set at the Coachella Music Festival over the weekend.

Footage from the event shows the star behind DJ decks, repeatedly screaming in frustration as “major technical difficulties” marred her set.

“F**KING ARGH! We are actually having a major technical difficulty, I’m trying to sync … I am not good enough at math for this s**t, but here we go,” she said, re-starting a track – and again screaming in frustration as it seemed to play at the wrong tempo.

“Grimes’ tracks are at double tempo for some reason and she’s tried to explain like 6 times now she can’t mix them on the fly,” one Twitter user explained.

Others were less kind, many declaring that Grimes had taken Frank Ocean’s 2023 mantle as the worst Coachella performance of all time.

Reclusive singer Ocean’s 2023 headlining set – his first live show in six years – was described as “messy, loose, and a near-disaster” by Variety, with lengthy silences between songs and the star frequently not visible to the audience. As backlash grew, Ocean swiftly dropped out of his planned set headlining the second weekend of last year’s festival.

Grimes’ Coachella set was plagued by technical issues. Picture: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

Grimes later posted a note to Twitter to apologise for the issue, explaining what had happened and vowing to fix things before her second Coachella show next weekend.

She wrote that “to save time” she had “outsourced essential things” in her technical set-up, but promised to “come back rly [sic] strong.

“Usually I always handle every aspect of my show myself – to save time this was one of the first times I’ve outsourced essential things.”

Grimes wrote that she had “a bad feeling beforehand” and that while she flagged potential technical issues, “I wasn’t insistent.”

“I had a bad feeling beforehand not having run everything thru the cdjs myself and tho I flagged it I wasn’t insistent,” she continued.

“I will personally organise all the files next week. I will not let such a thing happen again. I’ve spent months on this show, making music and visuals, and admittedly am not in the best mood atm But, yeh – next week will be flawless, everything will run thru my hand,” she wrote.

Grimes' entrance to Coachella was out of this world. pic.twitter.com/RTdsIv8BoL

— Catch Up (@CatchUpFeed) April 14, 2024

While her set may not have gone to plan, Grimes did at least know how to make an entrance: the singer, and mother to three children with tech billionaire Elon Musk, arrived on stage atop a giant mechanical spider.

Meanwhile, this year’s Coachella crowd has been labelled “embarrassing” after footage circulated of Blur frontman Damon Albarn trying in vain to get the festival’s huge crowd to sing along with his band’s biggest hit.

“You’re never seeing us again, so you might as well f**king sing this,” he fumed on stage, following a very muted reaction to his attempts to initiate an audience singalong.

“Coachella looks like the f**ing worst. Poor Blur,” wrote one fan on social media.

Originally published as Grimes apologises after disastrous Coachella performance