Ice Spice faces backlash for five-minute show in Brisbane on New Year’s Eve
Ice Spice performed at Wildlands Festival in Brisbane, Australia on New Year’s Eve but disappointed fans after only being on stage for six minutes. The Bronx rapper was 25 minutes late for her headline set, and with her slot only lasting 30 minutes, she was forced to leave the stage after performing just two songs.
Spice’s set was scheduled to begin at 10:30pm local time preceding Chase & Status, who brought in the new year with a one-hour show on the same stage at 11:30pm. The rapper performed ‘Deli’ and ‘Princess Diana’ in full, she then attempted to do ‘In Ha Mood’, but the music didn’t play and her mic was cut off.
Podcaster and journalist, Brenton Larney, was in the crowd for her set and claimed she didn’t seem at all interested. “At 11.01pm – they gave her an extra minute – they cut the mic and you heard the collective sigh from the crowd,” he told The Guardian.
“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.”
He added that Spice appeared 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. It didn’t help.”
Wildlands issued a statement on social media that acknowledged Spice’s late arrival time. “We understand that Ice Spice’s delayed arrival caused some frustration,” they 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!”
Leading up to the festival, promoters had billed Spice as “one of the world’s biggest acts of the last few years, American drill queen with a pop twist.” Spice was reportedly an hour late for another festival just days before, forcing Chase & Status to push back their performance.