90s pop icons Aqua have sparked concern after the Barbie Girl hitmakers’ lead singer walked off stage, before returning crying in her pyjamas.
The band were playing the first gig of their Australian comeback tour in Perth on Thursday night when bizarre scenes began to unfold.
Concert goers described the show as ‘awkward’ and ‘horrendous’ after a series of bizarre incidents left the crowd confused.
Mix94.5 producer Shelby Brady recounted the performance on Pete & Kymba for Breakfast on Friday morning, telling the hosts the show was ‘instantly bad’ but got worse when Nystrom left the stage and returned crying in her pyjamas.
Pop group Aqua left crowds confused after they left the stage. Picture: Instagram/Adam1985
After an hour, lead singer Lene Nystrom returned in her pyjamas. Picture: Instagram/Adam1985
The Euro-pop band is best known for their 1997 hit single Barbie Girl and kicked off their Australian tour in Perth at Metro City on Thursday evening.
Brady said the show got off on the wrong foot before the band had even stepped on stage, with the crowd spotting an embarrassing error on a stage screen.
‘I knew they were off to a bad start when the screen behind them said “Hello Adelaide”,’ she said.
While she described the first song, Cartoon Heroes as a ‘vibe’, the show continued to go downhill when Nystrom disappeared from the stage, saying the departure was the result of a ‘sound issue’.
The pop star group are best known for their hit single Barbie Girl. Picture: Supplied
‘You could see that the main woman (Lene Nystrom) was taking her head piece out throughout the song but it didn’t seem like a big issue,’ she said
‘She walks off and she’s the lead singer so they have to continue without her.’
Shelby said the remaining singers were ‘floundering’ before they all left the stage for an hour, leaving hundreds of concert goers confused.
‘It’s so awkward, nobody knows what’s happening,’ she said.
‘They shut the bar so you couldn’t get drinks, there was nowhere to sit.
‘People left because there was no communication at all. It was just an empty stage with nobody there.’
But the show took a turn for the worse when the lead singer returned to the show visibly upset and donning her pyjamas.
‘They come back on at 10pm. The lead female singer was wearing pleather before, she’s dressed out of that and she’s now in her actual pyjamas,’ Brady said.
‘She was crying … heavy breathing for the whole time and that was for the entire hour performing.’
Host Kymba Cahill was empathetic to the singer, suggesting she may have been having an ‘episode’ and attempting to get through the performance.
‘Do you think it might have started as a sound issue? But to me that sound’s like she’s having a bit of an episode,’ Cahill said.
‘If you go from your tight pleather outfit and you’re off stage for an hour and you come back crying and in your pyjamas that indicates something has gone wrong. She’s not okay.’
The onstage blunder comes as the group was forced to downsize their shows in Australia due to underwhelming demand.
