Why were Questlove and Kamal missing from The Roots line-up on Sunday?

One of the keys to the success of The Roots is ?uestlove (aka Questlove, aka Ahmir Thompson). ?uestlove is the charismatic, giant-fro’d frontman of the band, and he runs the show from behind the drum kit. He drums, does arrangements, produces, and he loves it all. You can see this at the live shows especially, or watch the "Dave Chappelle’s Block Party" concert film, where you see Questlove calling the shots on stage.

When The Roots hit the stage at The Rogers Picnic on Sunday without Questlove, it was a notable absent. I'd been looking forward to seeing him again and I kept looking around for him, expecting him to pop on stage after each song. We didn’t get a shout out or explanation, so all we had was speculation. Was Quest stopped at the border? Sick? Someone in his family took ill? Did he eat at one of those tourist-trap restaurant boats at Harbourfront and get food poisoning? (stay away from the clam chowder)

And no disrespect to Kamal, who was also absent. It’s just that Questlove is the guy most identified with The Roots, the frontman. And no disrespect to Frankie Knuckles, who is The Roots second drummer, and who held it down on the main kit.

I was a bit concerned so the next day I checked in on the OkayPlayer (their label) forum and found this:

justinwak posts:
"?uestlove shows no love for Toronto @ Rogers Picnic"

and kamal aswell...both were m.i.a...I was seriously gonna come on and post right after the show saying how crap that was (especially after the CRAZY show they put on in march) But Lupe and De La definately redeem itbut still why no quest and kamal?im looking for qoolquest for the answer!

So right off the bat a poster on the forum assumed that the absence was a diss to Toronto and led to a “crap” performance. Not cool.

Which led to Questlove’s response:

"for future reference"In response to Reply # 0

a) its pretty much common knowledge that we are THE most responsible act in hip hop period.

so if something comes up sorta out of the ordinary you know that pretty much something beyond an act of god kept me from being there.

the point of this response isn't to give an explanation.

but its to train you players in your approach in asking about "what happened".
most of yall come from the defense (?uest shows no love)

now--if some shit occurred like my mom dying or my left leg getting chopped off in an accident then you'd feel a lil small no?

not that those things happen but it would be nice not to see a selfish post (regardless of the "well i pay my money etc..." issue)---or a post that "hints" at that (this is such a post)

how about a "is he alright? man something must have been an emergency for him not to show up at his own gig"

and to answer we did everything short of walk on hot coals to get there....there was NOTHING we could do,thank you for your "concern"

vvvvvvvv is EL

Inclement weather grounded Kamal and ?uestlove's flight. No drama, no diss. So just trust The Roots to hit it that much harder the next time they come to Toronto to show us some love.