On May 20, 2008, at Rockefeller Plaza in New York, Fergie took the stage on Today with the energy of someone who’d had an extra battery installed overnight.
It was 8:54 in the morning, and she was singing “Barracuda”, Heart’s 1977 classic, but the surprise came halfway through the show when, without warning, she started doing one-handed cartwheels while holding the microphone in her other hand. She kept letting out her “whoas” between turns, as if singing upside down were the most normal thing in the world, especially at that hour.
The scene seemed like a mix of a rock concert, a gymnastics class, and a televised exorcism. Some remember it with secondhand embarrassment; others are still impressed because Fergie not only powered through an extremely demanding vocal performance, but also worked cartwheels and acrobatic spins into her live act without losing the beat, pitch, or control of her breathing.
And it wasn’t a one-off impulse. During the 2000s, the singer incorporated the move into various performances. As she later explained, it all started during “Shut Up”, when she and will.i.am were improvising vocal battles and strange moves onstage. Fergie recalled that she could do the acrobatic move using just one hand, so she held the microphone in the other and made the trick part of her show.
The moment became part of pop culture. So when you think it’s too early to get up, remember the image of Fergie.