US rapper Ice Spice has been criticised for “disrespecting” Australian music fans after playing just two songs at a festival in Brisbane on New Year’s Eve.
Ice Spice is one of three headline acts and more than 35 artists for the travelling Wildlands festival who performed at the RNA showgrounds in the heart of the Queensland capital on 31 December, with punters paying up to $242 for the occasion.
She was slated to begin a half-an-hour show at 10.30pm, with British drum’n’bass duo and fellow headliners Chase & Status to ring in the new year from the same stage with a one-hour show starting at 11.30pm.
But she was 25 minutes late in starting her show at 10.55pm and after only two songs she left the stage.
Gold Coast-based music podcaster and journalist Brenton Larney was in the crowd for the six-minute show.
“At 11.01pm – they gave her an extra minute … – they cut the mic and you heard the collective sigh from the crowd,” he says. “They’d been waiting for a while and they get two songs?
“So that was a bit ridiculous and it was just really disrespectful how she walked off, she was laughing they tried to give her flowers for her birthday and she just shrugged them off”.
Larney said Ice Spice appeared quiet and as if “she didn’t want to be there”.
“It was just really disrespectful to see, especially with all the cancellations and stuff we’ve had in the Australian music scene,” he said.
“It didn’t help.”
Mia Sims, a 20-year-old dance teacher from the Gold Coast, said she and many others were already waiting 30 minutes before Ice Spice’s show was scheduled to start to get a good place in the mosh pit, meaning many had been pressed together for almost an hour in total for the brief set.
“And she came out and played two songs – and they weren’t even two of her most popular songs,” Sims said.
“It kind of seemed like a bit of a joke, like she didn’t really care that much and especially, like, she hasn’t posted anything on her socials or apologised. So I couldn’t imagine being one of her biggest fans and that happening.
“I’d be pretty devastated”.
Ice Spice, whose real name is Isis Naija Gaston, was contacted through her agency.
Wildlands festival did not respond to questions but has commented on social media about the incident.
“We understand that Ice Spice’s delayed arrival caused some frustration,” the festival wrote.
“Managing a stacked festival means that we have to be extremely firm with scheduled set times. We had a strict curfew of 12:30 and needed to ensure that Chase & Status went on stage on time so you could all enjoy the NYE Countdown!”
Promoters had billed Ice Spice as “one of the world’s biggest acts of the last few years, American drill queen with a pop twist”.
She was reported to have been an hour late for another festival days earlier with Chase & Status forced to push back their set on that occasion.
She is slated to perform in Adelaide and Perth with Wildlands.
Though Larney said that may be the last she will be seen on the festival circuit in this country for some time – provided she turns up.
“I just think the one positive that is going to come out of Ice Spice pulling this type of behaviour is that I don’t think she’ll be invited back to Australia for a long time.”
