Reinforcing a Belter

[A3rd.Zero]

I went to a friend's concert the other night. It was your standard in a bar situation. There was a drummer (not reinforced) a bassist and an electric. The friend (singer) was on an acoustic with some sort of pickup. Other than the fact that these situations are always run hot IMO it was really loud. She's a belter but she also sings quite softly at times, what was good about the reinforcement was that you could always hear her, but what was diffucult was that when she went all out something was going wrong. I watched the meeters and they weren't peaking so I don't think she was overloading the preamp, but it almost sounded like she was distorting something.

Wondering if anyone can make sense of this (of my description/or of the situation).

Milo