Musician Beck will no longer open for Arcade Fire’s North American tour. He was replaced by another group on Friday. Beck is stepping down as Arcade Fire singer Win Butler has been the target of sexual misconduct allegations since late August.
The alternative rock band is due to perform in around twenty North American cities between the end of October and the beginning of December 2022. The tour should also end with a concert at the Bell Center in Montreal on December 3.
At the time these lines were written, The duty had still not received a response from the agency that represents Beck regarding a possible causal link between the musician’s withdrawal from the tour and the allegations of sexual misconduct against Win Butler.
Anyway, several people who held tickets for different performances of the tour claimed on social media that they had received a message which stated that “Beck will no longer be able to join Arcade Fire” during the tour, and that the Haitian group Boukman Eksperyans will replace him.
The Facebook event of the Montreal concert does indeed confirm that Boukman Eksperyans will be part of the tour, but does not mention Beck. The cover photo of the event was also changed on Friday evening.
Many Internet users, from all the performances concerned by the tour, have also complained of not having been able to be reimbursed.
Second artist to leave the tour
Recall that the singer of Arcade Fire, Win Butler, was the subject of allegations of sexual misconduct published in an article by the magazine pitchfork at the end of August. Four people claimed, in anonymous testimonies, to have suffered harassment and non-consensual sexual touching. Win Butler later denied the allegations, and his wife, Régine Chassagne, also a member of the group, defended him.
The Canadian singer Feist had also dropped the European portion of the Arcade Fire tour in early September. Boukman Eksperyans had also replaced her. Unlike Beck, Feist has made it clear that she stepped down in the wake of the Win Butler allegations.
“Staying on the world tour means I’m defending or ignoring the harm done by Win Butler, and leaving would mean I’m judge and jury. […] I can’t solve it by leaving, and I can’t solve it by staying. But I can’t go on,” she said.
Various Canadian radio stations had also stopped broadcasting the music of the Montreal group in the days following the revelations of pitchfork.