completemusicupdate.com
02.09.2022 / 13:39
Feist pulls out of Arcade Fire tour following sexual misconduct allegations against Win Butler
Feist has pulled out of tour dates with Arcade Fire, saying that she “can’t continue” in light of sexual misconduct allegations made against the band’s frontman, Win Butler.In a statement posted on her website, she said that she had learned of the allegations against Butler last weekend as they were published by Pitchfork, and had already been in Dublin for the first show of the tour, leaving her without “any time to prepare for what was coming let alone a chance to decide not to fly across the ocean into the belly of this situation”.She found herself in circumstances, she says, where “to stay on tour would symbolise I was either defending or ignoring the harm caused by Win Butler and to leave would imply I was the judge and jury”.At the first show of the tour in Dublin on Tuesday, she performed but also announced that she would be donating all proceeds from merch sales to Women’s Aid Dublin.But now she has decided to leave the tour entirely, saying: “My experiences include the same experiences as the many people I have spoken to since the news broke on Saturday, and the many strangers whom I may only be able to reach with this letter, or not at all. We all have a story within a spectrum ranging from baseline toxic masculinity to pervasive misogyny to actually being physically, psychologically, emotionally or sexually assaulted.