LED problems on Pirate Radio (Phat Beat)

pirate_ledsI have assembled and tested my Pirate Radio and everything worked for a short time, like thirty minutes. Then the VU Meter led lights mostly went off, they no longer function properly (see attached pic). I purchased another Phat Beat from Adafruit and the same thing happened with that one. I tried to run the function phatbeat.clear() in a separate script, but that does nothing to the lights. I have noticed other posts with the same issue. Is there something wrong with the units or are we all doing something wrong installing these boards. Help!
Thanks,
Danny
PS notice on the photo the reflection under the Pirate Radio, you can see what lights are on.