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Crowd surfing is the process in which a person is passed overhead from person to person (often during a concert), transferring the person from one part of the venue to another. The "crowd surfer" is passed above everyone's heads, with everyone's hands supporting the person's weight.
At most concerts and festivals the crowd surfer will be passed towards a barrier in front of the stage by the crowd, where they will be pulled off and put on their feet by the security stewards. Then, they will be sent back to the side or rear of the crowd at the end of the barrier or they may be ejected from the venue (depending on the policy enforced). Other venues may allow the crowd surfer to go onto the stage with the artist for a brief period of time before stage diving or being escorted off the stage.
Crowd surfing generally occurs only towards the front of an audience where the crowd is dense enough to support a person's body. It is most popular at
Iggy Pop may have invented crowd surfing at 1970's Cincinnati Summer Pop Festival (Midsummer Rock Festival).
However, Bruce Springsteen appears in the first documented video of crowd surfing in his 1980 Rock concert at Arizona State University, in Tempe, Arizona during his live performance of " Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out".
In early 1980 Peter Gabriel was reported to have crowd surfed during performances of " Games Without Frontiers" by falling into his audience "crucifix style" and then being passed around. During a later tour in 1982 Gabriel also crowd surfed during performances of ' Lay Your Hands on Me'. The rear sleeve of his 1983 album '' Plays Live'', recorded during Gabriel's 1982 tour, features a photograph of him crowd surfing, although the image has been rotated 90 degrees so Gabriel appears to be standing.
" Iggy Pop had jumped into an audience prior to me," Gabriel explained to Mark Blake, "but he hadn't done that thing of lying on the hands and being carried around by the audience. I had the idea from a game you did with a therapy group where you had to fall backwards and trust the person behind to catch you. I was always interested in closing the gap between the performer and the audience. At an open-air show in Chicago I was passed around and returned to the stage minus every piece of clothing except my underpants. There was an edge to doing it and part of you was praying you'd get back to the stage in one piece."
The first official video release to depict Gabriel crowd surfing was ''POV'', a concert video released in 1990 and produced by
Crowd surfing is illegal in some countries and patrons can, in theory, be ejected from the venue for partaking in the act. This is usually written in the fine print of the concert or festival ticket.
Supporters of crowd surfing say that by standing in the mosh pit, concert-goers should expect such behavior as part of a rock show and by standing more towards the side or rear of the venue they can easily avoid such behavior. They also say that serious injuries caused by crowd surfing are extremely rare. It is true that the majority of injuries caused by crowd surfing are only mild bruising, which occurs in any mosh pit without crowd surfing. It is common mosh pit etiquette to pick up anyone who has fallen over.
At larger events, such as festivals, crowd surfing can be used as a means of transporting individuals out of the crowd. On occasion, individuals may wish to leave the event because of any given reason, but there can be too many people bringing other people in. Therefore, some people use crowd surfing as a means to get out. Crowdsurfing can be used to help injured or sick participants find medical help quickly. A person losing consciousness at a large hot outdoor summer festival can arrive at medical help in less than a minute by being passed to security. Those facing the stage are often unaware of crowd surfers heading towards it and it is not uncommon for audience members to be kicked or otherwise hit in the back of the head. Opponents of crowd surfing claim that it is inappropriate for crowd surfers, stagedivers and moshers to dominate the most attractive area of the audience (directly in front of the stage) with the threat of (accidental) violence forcing people who do not want to get injured to stand at the back or to the side, which are much less attractive locations. Opponents argue that all visitors pay the same price for admission and are entitled to experience the concert without risk of getting kicked in the face or crushed by crowd surfers.
Crowd surfers also risk having personal items such as wallets or
Bruce Springsteen “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” The River Tour 1980
Peter Gabriel crowd surfing in 1987 while performing Lay Your Hands On Me
Crowd surfing at a rock festival in Poland
(promotional video of Przystanek Woodstock)
Leo Laporte crowd surfs at the DiggNation event at South by South West 2010
{{Rock festival Surfing Musical culture
Crowd surfing is the process in which a person is passed overhead from person to person (often during a concert), transferring the person from one part of the venue to another. The "crowd surfer" is passed above everyone's heads, with everyone's hands supporting the person's weight.
At most concerts and festivals the crowd surfer will be passed towards a barrier in front of the stage by the crowd, where they will be pulled off and put on their feet by the security stewards. Then, they will be sent back to the side or rear of the crowd at the end of the barrier or they may be ejected from the venue (depending on the policy enforced). Other venues may allow the crowd surfer to go onto the stage with the artist for a brief period of time before stage diving or being escorted off the stage.
Crowd surfing generally occurs only towards the front of an audience where the crowd is dense enough to support a person's body. It is most popular at metal
A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...
, punk
Punk or punks may refer to:
Genres, subculture, and related aspects
* Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres
* Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...
, rock, rave and indie
Indie is a short form of "independence" or "independent"; it may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Gaming
*Independent video game development, video games created without financial backing from large companies
*Indie game, any game (board ...
concerts.
In order to get above everyone's heads, a person can be given a boost, in which one person picks up another to launch them over the people's heads, or they can stage dive.
This has been known to happen to unwilling participants who have been boosted up by others by surprise, in which case, those participants may also be ejected.
Origins
Iggy Pop may have invented crowd surfing at 1970's Cincinnati Summer Pop Festival (Midsummer Rock Festival).
However, Bruce Springsteen appears in the first documented video of crowd surfing in his 1980 Rock concert at Arizona State University, in Tempe, Arizona during his live performance of " Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out".
In early 1980 Peter Gabriel was reported to have crowd surfed during performances of " Games Without Frontiers" by falling into his audience "crucifix style" and then being passed around. During a later tour in 1982 Gabriel also crowd surfed during performances of ' Lay Your Hands on Me'. The rear sleeve of his 1983 album '' Plays Live'', recorded during Gabriel's 1982 tour, features a photograph of him crowd surfing, although the image has been rotated 90 degrees so Gabriel appears to be standing.
" Iggy Pop had jumped into an audience prior to me," Gabriel explained to Mark Blake, "but he hadn't done that thing of lying on the hands and being carried around by the audience. I had the idea from a game you did with a therapy group where you had to fall backwards and trust the person behind to catch you. I was always interested in closing the gap between the performer and the audience. At an open-air show in Chicago I was passed around and returned to the stage minus every piece of clothing except my underpants. There was an edge to doing it and part of you was praying you'd get back to the stage in one piece."
The first official video release to depict Gabriel crowd surfing was ''POV'', a concert video released in 1990 and produced by Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese ( , ; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Scorsese emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He is the recipient of many major accolades, inclu ...
. When Billy Joel crowdsurfed in a concert during his 1987 concert tour of the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
, bandmate Kevin Dukes described it as the "Peter Gabriel flop".
Dangers
Crowd surfing is illegal in some countries and patrons can, in theory, be ejected from the venue for partaking in the act. This is usually written in the fine print of the concert or festival ticket.
Supporters of crowd surfing say that by standing in the mosh pit, concert-goers should expect such behavior as part of a rock show and by standing more towards the side or rear of the venue they can easily avoid such behavior. They also say that serious injuries caused by crowd surfing are extremely rare. It is true that the majority of injuries caused by crowd surfing are only mild bruising, which occurs in any mosh pit without crowd surfing. It is common mosh pit etiquette to pick up anyone who has fallen over.
At larger events, such as festivals, crowd surfing can be used as a means of transporting individuals out of the crowd. On occasion, individuals may wish to leave the event because of any given reason, but there can be too many people bringing other people in. Therefore, some people use crowd surfing as a means to get out. Crowdsurfing can be used to help injured or sick participants find medical help quickly. A person losing consciousness at a large hot outdoor summer festival can arrive at medical help in less than a minute by being passed to security. Those facing the stage are often unaware of crowd surfers heading towards it and it is not uncommon for audience members to be kicked or otherwise hit in the back of the head. Opponents of crowd surfing claim that it is inappropriate for crowd surfers, stagedivers and moshers to dominate the most attractive area of the audience (directly in front of the stage) with the threat of (accidental) violence forcing people who do not want to get injured to stand at the back or to the side, which are much less attractive locations. Opponents argue that all visitors pay the same price for admission and are entitled to experience the concert without risk of getting kicked in the face or crushed by crowd surfers.
Crowd surfers also risk having personal items such as wallets or mobile phone
A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whi ...
s stolen, or their shoes or clothes removed and thrown into inconvenient locations. This is known as "mosh-lobbing".
In December 2004 when the Beastie Boys performed at the Manchester Arena
Manchester Arena, currently referred to as the AO Arena for sponsorship reasons, is an indoor arena in Manchester, England, immediately north of the Manchester city centre, city centre and partly above Manchester Victoria station in air rights s ...
in Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
, England, Ad Rock
Adam Keefe Horovitz (born October 31, 1966), popularly known as Ad-Rock, is an American rapper, guitarist and actor. He was a member of the hip-hop group Beastie Boys. While Beastie Boys were active, Horovitz performed with a side project, BS ...
stopped partway through a song to warn the crowds to stop surfing as somebody had been injured, following up the discouragement with "that shit is so old" and telling them to "save that shit for the MTV music awards".
Events
The world record holder for the highest number of crowd surfers (recorded) in one performance is a mixed genre band during their performance at Reading festival in 2009.Enter Shikari
Enter Shikari (stylised as enter: shikari and occasionally as ΣΠΤΣ℞ SΗΦΚ∆℞Φ) are a British rock band formed in St Albans, Hertfordshire, England in 1999 by bassist Chris Batten, lead vocalist and keyboardist Rou Reynolds, and dr ...
provided the music and encouragement for this whilst security safely caught and redirected them out of a side gate back into the crowd. For a world record, the crowd surfer must "surf" over the barrier to be classed as a valid entry.
Crowd surfing extended for the first time to the classical music scene, when in June 2014 at the Bristol Proms an audience-member was ejected by fellow audience members during a performance of Handel's Messiah after he took the director's invitation to "clap and whoop" to the music a step too far by attempting to crowd-surf.
See also
*Air guitar
Air guitar is a form of dance and movement in which the performer pretends to play an imaginary rock or heavy metal-style electric guitar, including riffs and solos. Playing an air guitar usually consists of exaggerated strumming and picking m ...
* Headbanging
Headbanging is the action of violently shaking one's head in rhythm with music. It is common in the contemporary rock, punk and heavy metal music genres, where headbanging is often used by musicians on stage. Headbanging is also common in tradi ...
* List of dances
This is the main list of dances. It is a non-categorized, index list of specific dances. It may also include dances which could either be considered specific dances or a family of related dances. For example, ballet, ballroom dance and folk dan ...
* Moshing
Moshing (also known as slam dancing or simply slamming) is an extreme style of dancing in which participants push or slam into each other, typically performed to "aggressive" live music such as heavy metal and punk rock. Moshing usually happen ...
* Stage diving
* Trust fall
References
External links
Bruce Springsteen “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” The River Tour 1980
Peter Gabriel crowd surfing in 1987 while performing Lay Your Hands On Me
Crowd surfing at a rock festival in Poland
(promotional video of Przystanek Woodstock)
Leo Laporte crowd surfs at the DiggNation event at South by South West 2010
{{Rock festival Surfing Musical culture