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BAD TUNE
Festival forced to apologise after huge 80s star performs out of tune before losing his microphone in ‘below par’ show
A FESTIVAL has apologised for Erasure singer Andy Bell’s “below par performance” where he was deemed out of tune - and even lost his microphone.
Shocked fans started booing and performed a mass walkout after the 80s popstar slurred lyrics to hits like A Little Respect, Sometimes and Always.
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One likened him to a “drunk nan singing karaoke at a family party” and another feared he had “one too many before coming on stage”.
An embarrassing clip showed him asking the quickly diminishing crowd “am I in tune?” to a pained cry of “no”.
Rewind South Festival in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, was hit with a deluge of emails and comments complaining about last Saturday’s headline act.
Organisers said in a statement: “Rewind Festival present in the region of 45 artists across each weekend on all stages and rely on a professional standard from artists and musicians to deliver a high quality performance.
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"We realise that the performance from Andy Bell fell short of that.
“The festival was not made aware of any situation that would lead to this below par performance in advance of the show.
“The artists and their management are responsible for delivery of their set and at no point were we notified that there was going to be any problem, so were not in a position to assess this before it was too late.
“Once the show was underway, we felt that it would be better to allow it to continue in the hope that this would be an improving situation - this clearly wasn’t the case.
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“Whilst we are genuinely sorry that this occurred it was something beyond our controls as, had it been flagged, we would have dealt with it accordingly.”
Other fans were quick to support him over the "bad day at the office" and wished he "gets any help he needs".
Peterborough-born Andy, 59, formed Erasure in 1985 with keyboardist Vince Clarke, 63, who co-founded Depeche Mode.
The synthpop duo had a string of top 40 hits and won Best British Group and the 1989 Brit Awards.
Representatives for Andy Bell were approached for comment.
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