Although Sunday’s AFC championship at Arrowhead Stadium was forgettable for Chiefs fans, it did have one memorable moment that is still going viral.
With the crowd packed inside one of the loudest venues in the NFL, all that was left before the coin toss was the singing of the national anthem by Grammy Award-winning artist Ashanti. As she began, it was clear that Ashanti’s microphone was not functioning properly, cutting in and out as she progressed through the anthem.
The microphone issues led to an unexpectedly beautiful moment as the Chiefs faithful began belting out the national anthem, assisting Ashanti as her microphone faltered. The fans belting out the song caught the attention of social media, with many on Twitter appreciating the beauty of the moment amid unexpected technical difficulties.
A similar situation unfolded during the 2021 NHL playoffs, when New York Islanders fans went viral for their rendition of the national anthem, according to “The Daily Wire.” The star of the moment — singer Nicole Raviv — was responsible for incorporating the crowd in the anthem and couldn’t have been happier that a “mortifying” mishap from earlier in the playoff series occurred so the special moment before game six could go down in the long and storied history of the Nassau Coliseum.
The assistance from the game four crowd gave Raviv and her team an idea — hand the mic to the fans.
“Once we saw the results of that [game four] — and we won that night — it was just such great energy in the building,” Raviv continued. “The atmosphere was really electric and everyone felt a part of it. Then the next game — which was game six — my team and I thought about ways to incorporate them [the fans] again. And that’s just what happened. So I sang in the beginning and then just gave them the microphone so they could really be heard this time and for it to be intentional.”
Alan Goforth | Metro Voice
