Watch Lainey Wilson Sing Through a Megaphone
Mia Horton No audio? No problem.
Lainey Wilson's sold-out show at the legendary venue Billy Bob's Texas hit a snag on Friday night (Sept. 8), when lightning struck some of the venue's sound equipment and caused an outage.
But the singer certainly wasn't about to let her fans down. She'd already signed the wall at Billy Bob's, and even left her hand prints in a slab of concrete along with the show date to commemorate the very special performance. So, during the brief sound outage, she rolled with it: A crew member came out and brought a megaphone for Wilson to use so that the crowd could hear her.
The new set-up took a little trial and error: Wilson initially tried to hold the megaphone herself, but that left her with no hands to play her guitar, so she asked the crew member to hold the megaphone up in front of her face so she could speak and sing to the audience. "Clearly we're having some technical difficulties," Wilson can be heard saying in one clip posted to TikTok, which also shows her laughing and having fun with the hiccup in her set.
Though the megaphone helped, it wasn't quite enough to get the job done, so Wilson pivoted once again. Instead of playing her own material, she switched gears to a cover of Keith Whitley's classic "When You Say Nothing at All," turning her show into a crowd sing-a-long.
According to the TikTok user who posted the clip, the outage "didn't last long," and despite the difficulties, Wilson's show was "THE BEST CONCERT I HAVE EVER BEEN [TO]!"
The megaphone moment might have been impromptu, but Wilson had one more trick up her sleeve for the crowd that night: An appearance from legendary country Randy Travis, who joined her onstage in the middle of her set.
"It ain't every night you get to bring out the legend [Randy Travis] nor sing through a megaphone but we covered both of those last night at [Billy Bob's Texas]," Wilson joked on social media, sharing a few photos from the night. "Thank y'all for your patience while we waited for the power to kick back on...guess ya could say lightning likes us these days."
Earlier this summer, Wilson went a capella during a heavy rainstorm at Carolina Country Fest after the storm got so bad her band was forced to stop playing. That occasion was another moment when Wilson took a tough situation and turned it into a one-of-a-kind concert memory for everyone in the crowd. As she racks up more and more shows like these, it's easy to see why she's the surprise, first-time Entertainer of the Year nominee at the CMA Awards this year.
