A song goes wrong. And then? Charlotte FC national anthem singer on her viral moment
Michelle Brooks-Thompson has performed the national anthem hundreds of times at various sporting events, from the NBA to Major League Baseball to the Duke’s Mayo Bowl game in December 2021 in Charlotte.
But she has never had her microphone cut out for the majority of the song, as it did due to technical difficulties Saturday night for Charlotte FC’s inaugural home match in Bank of America Stadium. And she has never had to have her performance saved by 74,479 fans — the largest crowd she had ever sung in front of — singing the national anthem together.
“It definitely wasn’t what we wanted at first,” Brooks-Thompson said Sunday in an interview. “But you know what? It became a magical moment.”
Brooks-Thompson stayed for the soccer game afterward, which Charlotte FC lost, 1-0. She said she talked to fans at the stadium who had tears in their eyes following the national anthem because they had been so moved by the whole stadium singing together. One of the many videos filmed of the impromptu singalong garnered more than 643,000 views on Twitter within the first 24 hours of being posted.
“Well, it’s not the kind of viral that we probably want,” Brooks-Thompson said, laughing. “But it will go down as very historic.”
Brooks-Thompson can and does perform all types of music, but she is well-known in the world of national anthem singers. She performs a soul-stirring rendition of the national anthem that also hums with efficiency, clocking in at about 90 seconds. Based in Massachusetts, she’s been singing it at big events for the past 20 years.
“It’s become sort of a trademark for me,” Brooks-Thompson said. “And I don’t take that lightly. To be able to sing a song that represents our country, and to sing it constantly, is very special.”
As for what happened Saturday night, Brooks-Thompson still isn’t sure. At soundcheck in the stadium about three hours before game time, everything worked perfectly. When she walked out onto the field, she felt confident. After all, she’s sung the national anthem for years and had done so in that very stadium only two months before.
Like most professional singers, Brooks-Thompson wears in-ear monitors for stadium performances so that she can hear her own voice and not any feedback or delay as the sound travels from her own mic to the stadium’s speakers.
She began with no problem:
Oh say can you see
By the dawn’s early light
Quickly, though, things started to unravel. She heard static, and then she couldn’t hear her own voice anymore in her in-ear monitors.
“The gentleman in front of me was signaling me to keep going, though,” Brooks-Thompson said. “And I was like, ‘OK, they’re going to fix it. I’m going to come back in and everything’s going to be great.’ ”
And she did come back in briefly, around the time of the rocket’s red glare. But then she immediately cut back out again.
In the meantime, though, the amped-up supporters in a crowd that was the largest in Major League Soccer history had taken over in a full-throated roar. The crowd got louder and louder as the song progressed, realizing that it was up to them to carry the day due to the microphone malfunction.
Brooks-Thompson, though, was having a much different experience than you might have guessed. Once she came back in about halfway through the song, she could hear herself in her in-ear monitors again. To her, this meant that she was live again, and so she kept belting out the song as usual. She even may have put a little extra oomph in it because the fan response was so strong.
“I was getting after it,” she said. “And the crowd was singing along with me, helping me along, and then at the end there was a huge ovation. And I thought: ‘Wow, this is absolutely phenomenal.’ ”
In fact, it was about five full minutes after the song ended, and Brooks-Thompson was back in the green room in the bowels of the stadium, that she was praised for being so professional about “what happened.”
“Wait,” she said. “The fans heard me, right? Because I was performing my heart out.”
Well, no, came the apologetic reply.
There had been a glitch in the new sound system installed for soccer. Or the soundboard. Or something. She never did quite get a full explanation.
“I was a little disappointed,” Brooks-Thompson said. “But after a while, I decided it had all worked out the way it was supposed to. We have a lot of disagreements in our country right now. But last night, you had 74,000 people in agreement to sing for our country. It doesn’t get a lot better than that.”
As for whether Brooks-Thompson will come back to Charlotte after this, she said she’s already tentatively booked for a Carolina Panthers game in 2022. She hasn’t yet been rebooked for another Charlotte FC home game, although she’d like to do one. And by Sunday, she was laughing about the experience.
“I still can’t believe I was singing so loud and nobody could hear me,” she said. “It’s like when you are on the phone with somebody and giving them a big spiel, and they’ve got you on ‘mute’ the whole time. This was definitely one for the books.”
This story was originally published March 6, 2022 at 6:00 PM.
