What exactly was going on with on Sunday night in Colorado, where the group headlined the final day of ?
Not only did the band’s set sound awful but their on-stage frustration eventually lead up to singer Matt Berninger throwing down his microphone and storming off the stage at the end of the group’s set, leaving fans quite bewildered.
As it turns out, this is one situation where we can blame the weather — and the rain that pummeled Riot Fest Denver’s final night in the parking lot of Sports Authority Field at Mile High.
“I can confirm that the National had a hard time last night,” Dawn Barger, the band’s manager, confirmed to Reverb on Monday morning. “The rain drenched the scrims in front of the speakers, which caused serious audio issues.
“The band was aware that the show didn’t sound good in the house and no amount of work at the mixing desk could fix the muffled sound coming through the wet scrims. So I think what you noticed was the mounting frustration as the band realized their fans weren’t having a good experience and that there was nothing that they or the crew could do to remedy the issues.”
Sure enough, multiple fans were complaining to the engineer behind the soundboard after only a few songs. The sound seemed to recover, but then it continued to go in and out.
Reverb has reached out to Riot Fest for comment and will update this post as soon as there’s more information.
Follow our news and updates on , our relationship status on and our search history on . Or send us a telegram.
Ricardo Baca is the founder and executive editor of , the co-founder of and an award-winning critic and
