The Brit was verbally abused on socials after the Glastonbury gig. Now she doesn’t want to play live anymore.
The British Billy Nomates has reacted to a flood of hateful comments on the Internet and has now deleted her Instagram account herself. The insults came after their performance at the Glastonbury Festival 2023, which also found its way onto the internet and was commented on with a lot of negative opinion. The recurring accusation: she would not play live and would rather deliver a “karaoke show”.
Will Billy Nomates never play live again?
Following their concert on Saturday 23 June, British radio station BBC 6 Music’s Twitter account published clips of Nomates’ performance. After that, the Bristol artist was met with hate from the internet. Like her role models Sleaford Mods, Billy Nomates played the music she had produced herself on her laptop and sang to it. This apparently upset some users, who raged in the comments that she wasn’t playing with a band and was just putting on a “karaoke show.” Nomates then asked BBC 6 to delete the videos.
The singer said in an Instagram Story before deleting her account: “The level of personal abuse on BBC 6 Music’s social media just for doing my job is insane. I have asked for all material to be removed.”
Furthermore, Billy Nomates announced that they would not play any more concerts after this summer. “I know what I do isn’t for everyone. I know a lot of people don’t appreciate me. But the level of personal insults on this public site is too much. There will be no more shows after this summer,” she added. The 33-year-old already completed her concerts in Germany in the spring of this year. Shortly after the announcement, she then deleted her entire profile on Instagram.
Statements of solidarity from several artists
In the meantime, numerous colleagues from Billy Nomates have come forward to support the incident. For example, singer-songwriter Billy Bragg Nomates expressed his solidarity on Twitter.
Label boss and Portishead mastermind Geoff Barrow also supports the singer: “Today, after performing at Glastonbury 2023, Billy Nomates was personally insulted by a group of six ‘Music Dads’ who said she should have a band? What they don’t know is that most of their favorite bands play to backing tracks. At least she’s not just pretending.”