Have Bloggers Ruined Concerts?

This photo is hard to argue with. (via WFMU) One also recalls that Band of Horses snafu where a particularly arrogant MySpacer earned a bird-flip for filming “The Funeral” and lived to feel entitled about it, not to mention our friend Mr. Flasher from the Fiery Furnaces show.

Then again, I’m guilty of plenty of concert photography myself and, photo pass or not, the lines are thinly drawn between reporters, bloggers and (assuming they exist anymore) actual fans. I always try to be considerate about my shooting and try to keep my LCD from floating over the crowd too much, but I’m also typically shooting for a blog with a thousand or so readers with a relatively impressive (by point-and-shoot standards) camera vs. taking 500+ PARTY PIX for Facebook on my iPhone. (Aside: If your photos never make it to Flickr, were they ever shot? Mr. Flasher’s Furnaces pictures have yet to surface and there were certainly more videos of Beck taken last night than the Internet would indicate. One would think in our culture of Personal Branding that everything would be YouTubed and Flickred immediately.) There’s some good discussion of this today over on Marathonpacks, but maybe an iPhone/Blackberry blogarazzi can explain the method to their madness, and in the meantime, feel free to weigh in on the glut of electronics at shows.

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Critical Backlash is a column where I complain about things.