Band of Horses Vs. Bootleggers

By Chris Kornelis Thu., Jul. 19 2007 at 11:25 AM

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Click here for a slideshow of Band of Horses' recent stop at The Showbox. Photos by Renee McMahon.

I was a bit surprised to hear that my request to record a portion of Band of Horses' set at The Showbox was rejected. We've had pretty good luck with bands (Beastie Boys, Kings of Leon) allowing us to give readers who weren't at the show a listen after the fact.

Horses' Ben Bridwell opened up to Pitchfork about why he gave our request—and more recently a fan—the finger.

"Do you have to tape every second, or even just your favorite song? I understand it, but it's becoming annoying."

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Well, I only do audio, and its as discreet as possible, even when open-taping with band permission. I can understand the band\'s annoyance at all those cellphone lights, which only end up resulting in crappy 30 second youtube videos. But what we do on our site is much more of a high-quality product, meant to expose bands to larger audiences. A good example would be our work with of Montreal, whose concert we recorded last weekend, and a link was posted on the band\'s official tour blog. That recording has been linked on about 10 other sites, downloaded by close to 1000 people, and ultimately given the band exposure and buzz for their tour.
Kornelis, you\'re right in the sense that if he and/or the rest of the band is so aggravated by photographers and videotapers, they shouldn\'t allow any of those devices in the door at all. It\'s not hard to put up a sign on the doors saying \"ABSOLUTELY NO CAMERAS OR RECORDING DEVICES ALLOWED,\" do a bag check upon entrance (they\'re supposed to do that anyway), and/or take cameras or cell phones away from people if they see them taking photos or video during the show. I mean, as a professional photographer, I\'m subject to strict regulations -- I gotta get a photo pass, I can usually only shoot the first three songs, never use flash (99% of the time I don\'t use flash anyway), etc., and if I break those rules I can have my shit confiscated or get permanently banned from the venue. But all around me, there\'s people with cameras shooting all night long, pretty much all of them using flash, etc ... it\'s kind of ridiculous. Why can\'t everyone be held to the same standard I am? If you\'re not gonna ban that stuff outright for everyone who\'s not there to record it for a professional reason, why not just allow everyone to shoot for the first couple songs if they want, and then that\'s it? That way, everyone is happy.
I understand it being a pain when EVERYONE is taking pics at a show. But, well, get over it. This is how people want to experience their shows. They paid to get in. If he has a problem with it, he shouldn\'t let it through the door. He should personally pat them all down, and take them away. Then at least the fans, that right, the people who paid to see him, will know what is expected of them. What an ass.
That Bridwell...what an asshole! Kidding... I couldn\'t agree with him more, actually. This generation of concert-goers is too obsessed with documentation to enjoy anything. It\'s not just distracting to the performer, but to the rest of the audience. I don\'t about y\'all, but I\'m like a crow...if the blue light of a cell phone or orange flicker of a camera lights up near me, I cock my head around to see what it is. I can\'t imagine I\'m the only one distracted by little blue glowing lights. Put that shit away, people...you can wait two hours to finger your electronics. Fuck \'em. Give \'em all the finger, Ben!
You know, I get where he\'s coming from (especially having read more of what he had to say in that Pitchfork interview) with videotaping, photographing, and audio-taping shows. When I\'m photographing a show for the Weekly or one of my other outlets, my job is to try to capture moments particularly for people who didn\'t get a chance to make it to the gig, to give them a sense of what it was like. But personally, oftentimes when I\'m shooting I miss out on the overall combination of sights, sounds, moods, etc. because I\'m so focused (no pun intended) on getting good photos. Not saying I don\'t enjoy the shows I photograph, but I definitely don\'t get the full immersion in the experience that I would just taking it in with all of my senses, and not primarily through a camera lens. So when I\'m at shows and see more than half of the audience either photographing it with cell phones or point-and-shoot digitals, or videotaping it or whatever, I kind of wonder if they\'re missing out on the heart of the matter by trying to capture it. I certainly don\'t begrudge anyone for doing it, I understand the impulse, but if I\'m not there to take photos for other peoples\' benefit, or I *really* want to get into the whole experience (especially for a band I really love), I don\'t bring my camera along. So I can see what Ben is getting at with this.

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