2016 Grammy Awards: Moments the Cameras Missed
The Eagles accept the 1977 Record of the Year award for “Hotel California” from NARAS president Neil Portnow and producer Ken Ehrlich at this year’s Grammys. (Photo: Getty Images)
In an evening filled with tributes, one of the most moving moments of the 58th annual Grammy Awards, held Monday at Los Angeles’s Staples Center, came from Jackson Browne and members of the Eagles, who paid homage to founding Eagles member Glenn Frey following his recent death. After a stellar rendition of the 1972 hit “Take It Easy,” producer Ken Ehrlich handed the band a Grammy Award for their landmark album, Hotel California — after the cameras stopped rolling. Ehrlich remarked that since the Eagles weren’t at the show to accept the award 39 years ago (they apparently hadn’t wanted to attend if they weren’t certain they’d win), he wanted to honor the band now for “one of the best albums ever made.”
Earlier in the night, Ehrlich had trouble getting the star-studded crowd at the Staples Center to settle down before the cameras started rolling. “John and Chrissy, will you sit down, please?” he implored John Legend and Legend’s very pregnant wife, Chrissy Teigen. They soon complied, but not before Dave Grohl and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band wandered down the aisles, marching through the crowd playing boisterously as a pre-telecast treat for audience.
Moments later, the house lights went down, and the bracelets that audience members had been given on the way to their seats lit up on command. Suddenly the entire arena was awash in a sea of sparkling purple as the night’s first performer (and ultimately Album of the Year winner), Taylor Swift, took the stage.
Soon the arena was buzzing with excitement for 11-time nominee Kendrick Lamar’s highly anticipated, politically charged performance. When he walked onstage shackled with fellow members of his “chain gang,” the crowd gasped, and the impressive pyrotechnic display during the production warmed the farthest corners of the heavily air-conditioned arena.
Earlier in the day, Lamar collaborators Thundercat and Flying Lotus told Yahoo Music that Lamar was a “creative powerhouse” and that they knew Lamar’s album, To Pimp a Butterfly, would be a momentous, groundbreaking release. “We knew how important this record was,” Flying Lotus said. “We didn’t say anything about it [at the time], but we knew it.”
While most of the night’s tributes, like the one to the late Glenn Frey, were somber, there was a joyous homage to Lionel Richie, who was named MusiCares Person of the Year two days earlier. The 66-year-old singer mouthed the words to his own songs performed by Legend, Demi Lovato, Luke Bryan, Tyrese Gibson, and Meghan Trainor. Richie, who watched from the audience, was flanked by Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson, who grooved right along with him. They went crazy when Richie got up onstage for the final number to sing “All Night Long” as people danced in the aisles.
Shortly afterward, Best New Artist nominees Tori Kelly and James Bay took the stage together, performing two of their biggest hits, “Hollow” and “Let It Go,“ respectively. Earlier in the day, Kelly told Yahoo Music on the red carpet that she felt surprisingly relaxed. “I feel like the year I’ve had has been leading up to this moment,” she said.
Adele gave one of the most anticipated performances of the evening, singing “All I Ask” from her recent massive album, 25. But something fell flat, and murmurs of confusion and surprise could be heard throughout the audience, because the powerhouse vocalist is usually so pitch-perfect. It turned out that the discordant element that sounded like an out-of-tune guitar was actually made by piano mics that fell onto the piano, according to a tweet Adele posted shortly afterward. But all was not lost, because Adele treated herself to a meal at In-N-Out Burger to make up for it.
