Hoai-Tran Bui

USATODAY

Adele is the consummate live performer, but when she sang All I Ask at the Grammys Monday night, she sounded a bit off.

Was Adele, the most gifted songstress of our era actually...flat? No, it can't be. It must be sound issues. The mic was actually placed on the piano strings! Her guitarist was trying to sabotage her! Whatever the case, Grammys sound issues or Adele actually faltering a bit, Twitter was not happy. Because when Justin Bieber sounds better than you, something's not right.

But USA TODAY reporter Carly Mallenbaum said Adele sounded flawless as usual during the actual live performance

At the Staples Center where the Grammy Awards were being held, Adele's sound was vastly different than what we heard on the TV, making us think that it was probably sound issues with the Grammy's broadcasting equipment.

Later, Adele confirmed that it was a technical issue:

The Recording Academy President said there was "a glitch"

Recording Academy President Neil Portnow said there was a "technical glitch" after a microphone fell into the piano during the performance. Then, when audio people switched sound systems to cover the noise, there was another problem.

“Typically that’s a seamless process. It wasn’t seamless. So you had a couple of seconds there where we did not have audio in the house. It was fixed in a matter of seconds, but we’re never happy when something like that happens.”

Portnow said the problems during the performance were “off-putting and certainly unexpected” for Adele.

“To Adele’s credit, she did a fantastic job. She just went through it," he said.