Billy Ray Cyrus says he conjured up some major Trump energy to push through his awkward inauguration performance after experiencing sound issues onstage.
“In life, when you have technical difficulties, you just gotta keep going, or as President Trump would say, ‘You gotta fight,’” Cyrus said while on stage before the crowd on Monday. For the 90s country star, it wouldn’t have mattered if his mic didn’t work at all, as he says he would have still put on a show.
“I wouldn’t have missed the honor of playing this event whether my microphone, guitar and monitors worked or not,” Cyrus, who said he was personally invited to the event by Donald Trump, told People in response to the tech issues. “I had a ball at the Liberty Ball last night and I’ve learned through all these years when a producer says, ‘You’re on,’ you go entertain folks, even if the equipment goes to hell. I was there for the people and we had a blast. That’s called rock ‘n’ roll.”
After performing he and Lil Nas X’s hit song “Old Town Road” with no backing track, even more tech problems impacted the singer-songwriter in the middle of his-rock out. As soon as he started to turn the audience up with his 1992 single “Achey Breaky Heart,” his guitar and microphone started to not work.
That’ when he started chatting it up with event attendees.
“Check? Is anybody awake?” Cyrus said in the moment. “Y’all want me to sing more or you want me to just get the hell off the stage?”
That’s when he shared supposed words from Trump: “As President Trump would say, ‘You gotta fight.’” Trump’s most notable use of the term “fight” was after the assassination attempt during a Pennsylvania campaign rally.
“We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” he said at the time. Trump was officially inaugurated Monday afternoon as the 47th President of the United States. Along with Cyrus, many other acts took the stage during inauguration events, including the Village People, Nelly, Kid Rock and Carrie Underwood – who had her own technical glitch when her backing track for “America, the Beautiful” didn’t play, forcing yet another a capella performance.
The post Billy Ray Cyrus Says He Pushed Through Awkward Inauguration Tech Issues by Channeling Trump: ‘You Gotta Fight’ appeared first on TheWrap.
