Poppy’s set at Welcome To Rockville was cut short after just one minute due to extreme weather – watch footage below.
The annual rock and metal festival is running this weekend from Thursday to Sunday (May 7 to 10) at the Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida, with Guns N’ Roses, Foo Fighters, My Chemical Romance, Bring Me The Horizon, Turnstile and The Offspring all fighting it out at the top of the bill.
Poppy was playing on Friday evening at the festival, but less than 60 seconds into the opening song of her set, the festival’s severe weather and lightning protocols kicked in, forcing her performance to be cut off entirely.
Weather warnings appeared on screens around the site as a thunderstorm blew across Volusia County, Florida, and the crowds were sent to their campsites and cars, or to the festival grandstands for safety.
Watch the moment that Poppy’s set was interrupted by the emergency messages, much to the crowd’s frustration, here:
In the end, the storm danger passed and the remainder of the Friday programme resumed, with headliners Foo Fighters rocking the festival’s main stage.
Poppy released her seventh studio album ‘Empty Hands’ in January, the follow-up to ‘Negative Spaces’ just a year earlier. Like its predecessor, it saw her teaming up with producer Jordan Fish, formerly of Bring Me The Horizon, and songwriter Stephen Harrison (House Of Protection).
She spoke to NME ahead of the release of ‘Empty Hands’, saying that teaming up with Fish again felt like “the right choice”.
“There’s a really nice point of consistency where you no longer have to explain yourself or your reasoning, and it’s understood and accepted,” she said.
She also spoke about the differences between ‘Negative Spaces’ and ‘Empty Hands’, which she finds “very evident”. “When the others hear it and decide to call it a genre or put their goo on it, that’s up to them,” she said. “I know where the line is drawn. To articulate that gives a bit of a disservice to it, because it muddies the presentation.”
In March, Poppy also teamed up with Son Lux’s Ryan Lott for the Marathon anthem ‘In Death We’ve Just Begun’.