Arcade Fire’s Win Butler Punches (?) Photographer
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It is difficult to tell what is actually going on in this video but according to the Music Photographers Facebook group, Arcade Fire’s Win Butler punched and cursed out a music photographer at the band’s 4/13 performance in Phoenix’s Comerica Theater. My first reaction to this was a knee-jerk music photographer solidarity anger – but it quickly passed into the realization that the photographer likely had it coming. It appears that the photographer was shooting from an area in front of the stage that Butler wanted to use for his “play the guitar to the crowd” routine. Yeah, maybe Butler was being a little precious with his “spot” but the photographer probably should have moved. It’s this kind of music photographer buffoonery that results in tighter restrictions on photography which is a big negative for the rest of us. From the video you can’t even really tell if Butler hits the guy or just gives him the finger (the altercation starts around 5:35). Anyway, if you are a music photographer and wanted to shoot Arcade Fire it will probably now be harder for you.
— Jon Behm
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He’s probably just mad about his stupid haircut
For God’s sake, there’s other videos of this. Butler didn’t even make contact with the photog, never mind punch him. This happened in front of a couple of thousand people, a couple of weeks ago, you don’t think if a well loved Grammy winning rockstar had punched a photographer it would have surfaced sooner?
He kind of pointed the headstock of his guitar in the direction of the camera, and then flips the bird, before waving at the guy to back off. That’s all. People I know who were in the front row didn’t even recall it until prompted, so it wasn’t nearly as big a deal as it’s turned into in recollection.
Even from a distance, the other videos clearly show the silhouette of the photographer walking right in front of the band repeatedly, throughout the whole song. Butler may have been a bit tetchy, sure, but the photographer was behaving like an absolute ass and I’m not surprised he got frustrated. He’s trying to put on a show, after all, and nobody wants to see some random dude’s ass bobbing in and out of view for the first three songs.
A press pass does not give you license to interfere with the artists or obstruct the paying crowd’s view for the sake of a shot, and you’re right to say that nitwit probably made life harder for everybody.
i went to their 3 Chicago shows with The National last weekend and there were definitely a couple super obnoxious (and very amateur) photogs in the pit, but other than one guy overstaying the 3 song limit (security just asked him nicely to leave and he did), didn’t notice any real problems.