Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Grimes screams onstage as Coachella set plagued by ‘major technical difficulties’

Social media critics brand Sahara Stage set ‘the worst performance in the history of Coachella’

Kevin E G Perry
Sunday 14 April 2024 02:08 EDT
Comments
Grimes gets 'cheeseboarded' on 'The Eric Andre Show'

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Grimes’ Saturday evening set at Coachella was plagued with so many “major technical difficulties” that the Canadian musician was left screaming in frustration.

The 36-year-old’s performance on the Sahara stage had begun with her arrival on the back of a spider-like robotic vehicle.

Click here for The Independent’s live coverage of Coachella 2024.

She then began a thilling set which included a mash-up of BLACKPINK star Jennie‘s “Solo” and Rihanna’s “Bitch Better Have My Money”.

However, her 50-minute set descended into chaos around the halfway mark when she ran into technical difficultues.

After restarting upcoming single “Music 4 Machines” several times, Grimes explained that her songs were playing at double speed.

“This is a difficult thing to explain but we’re having a major technical error,” she said. “Don’t judge me for being bad a calculating things.”

She explained: “All my tracks are double tempo and I can’t do the math. They’re borderline un-mixable, so the rest of my set won’t be mixes but it’ll still be fun.”

Grimes arriving onstage at Coachella atop a spider-like robotic vehicle
Grimes arriving onstage at Coachella atop a spider-like robotic vehicle (YouTube)

She screamed in frustration several times, as well as apologising and promising to to fix the problems ahead of Weekend 2 of Coachella.

On social media, critics were quick to brand the event “the worst performance in the history of Coachella”.

While others were somewhat more sympathetic, with one writing: “‘being bad at math is not a sin’ this grimes set is hard to watch”.

Last month, Grimes went “Instagram official” with her new boyfriend.

She shared a post on Instagram on 23 March that featured photos of her and her new beau, as they stood in front of a purple-lit backdrop.

Although she didn’t tag her partner in the photos, it appears she was posing with EDM artist Anyma, which fans called out in the comments.

Grimes was previously in a relationship with billionaire Elon Musk. They first met in 2018 after he sent her a message on social media. In September 2021, Musk revealed to Page Six that he and Grimes had “semi-separated” due to conflicting schedules and locations.

Two months later, the pair welcomed a daughter, Exa – who was given the nickname Y – via surrogate. Along with Exa, the former couple have a three-year-old son, X AE A-XII, who is nicknamed X. The tech giant also secretly welcomed a third child with Grimes, named Techno Mechanicus, on 9 September, 2023.

Click here to read The Independent’s rolling live coverage of Coachella 2024.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in