Britney Spears was playing a show in Vancouver, British Columbia, when she stopped after just three songs due to the heavy pot smoke drifting from the crowd. The show was suspended for nearly an hour after an initial announcement that the smoke was unsafe for Britney and the crew. According to Britney’s rep, quoted on PerezHilton, it was indeed a safety issue for the crew above the stage:
The Toxic performer, who doesn’t even sing live at her shows, walked off stage after just three songs.
The concert came to a complete standstill, lights off, for over 20 minutes – when a voice came over the speaker system and announced that the show would not continue if people kept smoking marijuana (and cigarettes) in the arena. The announcer claimed it was “unsafe” for Britney and the performers to continue with the concert.
Almost 40 minutes later, Spears finally took to the stage again, much to the relief of the thousands in attendance. But, one concertgoer tells us, “She did not look into it at all!”…
A rep tells us, “We want to apologize to all the fans who attended our Vancouver show tonight for the brief pause in Britney’s set. Crew members above the stage became ill due to a ventilation issue.”
Sources tell us it really was a safety issue. “We were concerned for the lighting guys and everyone else working on the show…”
After the final encore, as Spears ran off the stage, Britney told the audience, “Thanks Vancouver. You were wonderful. Drive safe. Don’t smoke weed!”
[From Perez Hilton]
I have bad allergies and am very sensitive to secondhand smoke. It makes me dizzy and gives me headaches. It makes sense that this kind of smoking on a wide scale in a closed arena could affect the crew, particularly when it’s pot and they run the risk of getting high. Britney is a smoker, but this is different and it sounds like it wasn’t about her so much as the people who had to work up high where the smoke was drifting. Anyone can be affected by that much smoke, especially when they’re trying to dance around for hours.
Yesterday we heard a maybe completely fabricated cover story from Star Magazine that Britney and K-Fed are hot and heavy again and are hooking up all over the place on tour. Now there’s news that Federline has decided to take his kids home from Britney’s tour because Britney is partying too much and he feels like she’s dumping the boys on him. That kind of takes the wind out of those reconciliation rumors.
This story is worded confusingly, but the gist is that Britney is partying and K-Fed has taken the boys back home with him. They might eventually return and it could be a planned break that OK! is spinning into something more:
“He didn’t sign up to be the babysitter so she could party,” the insider tells OK!. “The idea was to accommodate Britney’s alleged desire to continue seeing the boys on her regular schedule.”
But after Britney’s March 20 hookup with Chase in a Montreal club bathroom and her night at Lotus, Kevin issued an ultimatum. “He wants out of this arrangement and he’ll go back into court to get it changed if he has to,” the source says. “They had a huge argument, with Kevin yelling at Britney that he’s done and taking the boys home.”
Kevin has sole custody of Preston and Jayden, while Britney has supervised visitation only: two overnights plus one additional daytime visit per week. Britney agreed to pay her former husband $5,000 a week to go on the tour with the boys, with a bus to accommodate them.
If Kevin signed an agreement regarding his tour duties, he may need legal assistance to break it and remain at his Tarzana, Calif., home with the kids until Britney wraps the U.S. leg of Circus on May 3. He’s already laid the groundwork by returning to L.A. with the boys right after his ex-wife’s night out in Dallas.
Britney had a few days off and headed to her new house in L.A.’s suburban Calabasas on April 4, then flew to her next stop, Alberta, Canada, two days later without her sons.
[From OK! Magazine]
I’m more inclined to believe this account than Star’s story that Britney and Kevin got busted having sex by her dad and Kevin’s girlfriend. Britney is doing a decent job on tour though from most accounts and this latest setback with the smoke in Vancouver sounds unavoidable and minor. Whether she’s getting it on with K-Fed or arguing with him over getting busy with a male dancer she’s still having fun and continuing to bring it on tour and that’s what really matters.
Britney is shown performing on 3/23/09. Credit: WENN.com
I don’t know. I mean, Vancouver is a famous pot-smoking city, I’m sure that the arena is well ventilated because they know that it’s inevitable.
wow–very misleading headline!
when a voice came over the speaker system and announced that the show would not continue if people kept smoking marijuana (and cigarettes) in the arena.
Drop dead, Brit.
I would think most fans would have to be hopped up on a whole lot more than weed to endure a Circus freak like this.
There was no mention of pot smoke with the exception of what Brit said at the end, the voice over the loud speaker asked people in the audience to extinguish all cigarettes.
Those kids are dollar signs to that slob of an ex-husband. Funny how he has every one believeing he cares when the truth is he is to lazy to work. He sure don’t care for shar kids because she don’t have the money Britney has.
This is smoke and mirrors for something else that was going on, which will not likely be reported.
What kind of world do we live in when a concert comes to grinding halt because the audience is smoking pot?
Please tell me how smoke can aggravate lip-synching.
Blaming the smoke for stopping her show was a farce. Clearly, Britney Spears should not be touring yet. The review of that concert on Canada’s Globe & Mail web site (national newspaper here in the great white north) says it all:
“It may have been billed as the Circus tour, but freak show would have been a better moniker for this bizarrely un-engaging, ugly production… And there just was no escaping the fact that the star was a feeble facsimile of her younger, brighter self – her moves unfocused and lazy, a point hammered home during a montage of her old music videos… The night ended with huge bursts of ticker-tape exploded into the crowd. A somewhat overemphatic finish, considering the speed with which Spears dropped a half-hearted curtsey and ran off the stage through the nearest exit – presumably to a limo waiting with its engine running.
Sadly, it was her most convincing performance of the night.”
Complete article here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090409.wspears0409/BNStory/Entertainment/home
@ raunnie, that’s what I was thinking. And it’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! There’s definitely more to the story, that is some stinky BS!
“Don’t smoke weed”. Advice. From Britney Spears. Okaaaaay….
The concert was probably stopped due to a malfunction of the taped sound system used for the lip syncing. And I loved the advice at the end of the concert. Don’t smoke weed, but party hardy while masturbating in public. You guys left that quote out of the story. Good luck, Brit! You’re going to need it.
At the madonna concert in vancouver, she asked the people near the stage to stop smoking because it was affecting her…..they stopped and the show continued and no one in the media even cared….It wasn’t a big deal, and Madonna was actually singing.
Inspiring article. I found it quite interesting my self. Thanks!
I adore Britney because she have nice voice .