Aside from the opportunity to make Drew Barrymore proud, inclement weather and outdoor festivals are not a good mix. Torrential downpour at Burning Man last year left tens of thousands of burners stranded. Reneé Rapp’s set at Leeds Festival on Friday was canceled after extreme rain caused a delay. And while the precipitation let up by the time she was supposed to perform at Reading today, the leftover dampness caused a lot of technical issues, cutting her set short.

Rapp started her set with her song “Talk Too Much,” but had to start over because her mic malfunctioned. A couple of songs later, rainwater that had collected above the stage was blown off by wind, soaking Rapp and her band. “Guys, I really really really wanna give you a good show. Um — we are drenched. Some of our equipment is fucked. So, thank you so much, that was so fuckin’ helpful,” Rapp said, gesturing above her. “But we do really wanna give you a good show. So, if you’re down, we will restart with ‘Not My Fault.’ And if I slip and fall, it is not my insurance. I’m not paying for that shit.”

But audio equipment, even at that scale, isn’t as sturdy as it seems; last month, the Brazilian singer Ayres Sasaki tragically died of electrocution after hugging a soaking-wet fan while wearing gear. And so Rapp got through “Not My Fault” — the Megan Thee Stallion-featuring single she recorded for the recent Mean Girls movie — but the show couldn’t go on after that. Mere hours after Reading Festival issued an apology for cutting Lana Del Rey’s headlining set short, Leeds posted another apology to Rapp and her fans on Instagram: “We would like to thank Reneé Rapp
for her perseverance and professionalism amidst the technical difficulties we have had to continue to deal with from Storm Lilian…We are desperately hoping, like you, that she will come back to R&L in the future.”

I personally would not come back if I was her. See some clips of the show below.

@sillyblonderenee the way her mic wasnt working too 😭 but we got her always 😭😭 @reneé #reneerappfan #reneerapp #reneerappsupremacy #snowhardfeelingstour #readingfestival ♬ original sound – M

@juicyfeetwipes i feel SO bad for her and her band!!! @reneé #cancelthem #reneerapp #readingfestival #leedsfestival ♬ original sound – stein alein

@producerjacob I’ve never seen a gig go so wrong Reneé Rapp had to stop her #readingfestival set three times. her crew had such bad luck #randl24 #reneerapp #behindthescenes #rainyrapp ♬ original sound – Jacob Rickard

Vídeo de como estava o palco principal do Reading Festival mais cedo antes do set de Reneé Rapp, que acabou sendo cancelado. pic.twitter.com/ytkYYW3hqS

— VOU DE GRADE (@voudegrade) August 25, 2024

@blondevibrations The stage just flooded while reneé was on stage stopping the set again #renee #reneerapp #snowangel #snowhardfeelings #reneerapptok #officialrandl #leedsfestival #readingfestival #ukfestival #mainstage ♬ original sound – Lilyemma & Eliz

new reneé rapp song just dropped guys!! pic.twitter.com/pKopwgMf7P

— ry ✶ (@starringnae) August 25, 2024