Ryan Adams has apologised to fans who attended his Melbourne show over the weekend, saying he is “wildly embarrassed and disappointed”.
As reported by The Music, the US singer-songwriter was performing at Hamer Hall on Sunday night (October 12th), where he stormed off stage and ended the concert early.
Numerous posts on a Reddit thread from punters who claimed to be at the gig gave varying accounts as to what occurred.
“Was good at the start of the show, but slowly began ranting, rambling and being bitter at Mandy,” One post read.
“Audience yelling at him to just play music, started ranting at the ushers for not doing their jobs before walking off stage. Going to save my night, I’m leaving now.”
Another wrote: “Melbourne was an absolute bust… berated ushers for not doing their jobs on controlling the seizure- causing flashes. Left the stage telling us he’d be back when we could do our job. Came back out for set two telling us he would play us the best ever set two to make up for his outburst. Lay on the stage. Rambled about Lasseter’s Reef.
“Started an improv apology song. Started and aborted ‘I See Monsters’ complaining his voice was breaking. Started and aborted ‘Firecracker’. Started and aborted ‘Do I Wait and Over The Rainbow’. Some dickhead had been yelling out for ‘Shiver and Shake’. Started maybe 3 bars with roadie on piano. Aborted. Made a go of ‘Not Dark Yet’ then started doing speeded up cookie monster version and aborted. Started ‘Stars Go Blue’. Complained it sounded shit. Tried in a lower key. Stopped. Crowd were encouraging him to continue. People started leaving and he said Fuck it. I’m leaving too. Didn’t complete a single song in the second half.”
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Taking to social media on Monday evening, Adams addressed the complaints.
“I am so wildly embarrassed and disappointed about last night,” Adams wrote.
“The LED camera flash on I phones and Androids going off in what to me from stage is a pitch black environment. I have no way to expect the flash. And what happens over time when there are so many, is I have an ocular seizure and I don’t know where I am, I don’t know what my guitar is and I panic and become disoriented. The saying ‘fight or flight’ applies here…. You want to run, you want to make yourself not have a seizure. Last night I unfortunately had to go through that several times in front of 2,500 people…. Which breaks my heart. Because I was crushing that show.
It concludes: “I love you all and I’m so sorry. You did nothing wrong. It’s normal to take photos and it’s normal to use a flash. I’ve had this my whole life and it’s been a real struggle because I love playing music for you live and I just can’t play with my eyes closed all night.”
Read the full post below.
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In a statement given to Rolling Stone AU/NZ, a spokesperson from Arts Centre Melbourne responded to the complaints made at the venue.
“The Ryan Adams concert was presented by promoter TEG MJR. Arts Centre Melbourne takes all feedback seriously and has provided the promoter with customer complaints from Sunday night and advised audience members requesting refunds to contact the presenter directly.”
Adams is touring Australia and New Zealand to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his solo debut album, Heartbreaker. He is scheduled to continue the tour in Christchurch this Wednesday.
