“Buttons” had already started by the time Nicole Scherzinger could get back onstage in Warsaw. With the lead singer held up by an equipment problem, Ashley Roberts and Kimberly Wyatt carried on without her.
The two danced through the opening of the Pussycat Dolls hit at COS Torwar on September 16, singing their own backing parts while much of the lead vocal went missing, according to Us Weekly. Scherzinger joined them partway through the song and stayed for the rest of the show.
The mishap came at the start of the concert’s final act, when “Buttons” brings the three members back together after their individual solo sections.
A representative later said Scherzinger was “devastated that the fans were let down in any way.” She hoped to return to Poland soon to make it up to them, the representative added.
A Costume Change Became an Equipment Change
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“During a wardrobe change, there was an issue with Nicole’s in-ear pack, which meant an unexpected mid-show change was necessary,” the representative said in a statement provided to Attitude.
The crew had to replace the pack entirely. The group decided to keep going while that happened, with the representative saying they wanted to avoid “stopping the entire show and disappointing the fans.”
“It would be less awkward to ask them to stop the music and start when everything was OK,” one X user wrote in a comment quoted by Us Weekly.
Instagram user @oliviaaandbeauty, who posted one of the clips, described a concert she had waited 20 years to see. She called the show “everything I could have ever dreamed of.” Her post also joked about the unexpected improvisation during “Buttons.”
Scherzinger Wanted to Make Her Grandmother Proud in Warsaw
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Before the show, Scherzinger had been posting about her first visit to Poland. Her grandmother Stella had Polish roots, and the singer shared photographs from around Warsaw along with a picture of Stella. According to Polish outlet Pudelek, she wrote that visiting the country felt like coming home to part of her ancestry and that she was excited to make her grandmother proud at that night’s show.
It was also the Pussycat Dolls’ first Polish concert, a week into the European leg that opened in Copenhagen on September 9. Lil’ Kim and Deja Vu supported the Warsaw date. Elsewhere in the set, Scherzinger sang “Hush Hush,” with Polish outlet Kozaczek sharing footage of her performing beside Roberts.
Scherzinger, Roberts and Wyatt announced their reunion in March and released “Club Song,” their first new recording since “React.” The PCD Forever Tour celebrates the 20th anniversary of PCD, the debut album that included “Buttons,” “Don’t Cha” and “Stickwitu.”
The official schedule takes the group to Antwerp and Paris next, with the U.K. leg starting in Birmingham on September 29. That run finishes at London’s The O2 on October 13. A São Paulo show is listed for October 30.