Crowd surfing

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When a person is passed overhead

title: "Crowd surfing" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["crowds", "musical-culture"] description: "When a person is passed overhead" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowd_surfing" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary When a person is passed overhead ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Crowdsurfen_Heideroosjes.gif" caption="Crowd surfing at a concert."] ::

Crowd surfing is the process in which a person is passed overhead from person to person (often during a concert). The "crowd surfer" is passed above everyone's heads, with everyone's hands supporting the person's weight.

Origins

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Crowd_Surfer_at_Music_Midtown_-_1997.jpg" caption="Crowdsurfer at [[Music Midtown]] festival, [[Atlanta]], 1997"] ::

Iggy Pop leapt into the crowd at the 1970 Cincinnati Summer Pop Festival, an early example of crowd surfing.

In early 1980 Peter Gabriel crowd surfed during performances of "Games Without Frontiers" by falling into his audience "crucifix style" and then being passed around. Gabriel would later crowd surf during performances of his song "Lay Your Hands on Me".

Said Gabriel:

The first official video release to depict Gabriel crowd surfing was POV, a concert video released in 1990 and produced by Martin Scorsese. When Billy Joel crowdsurfed in a concert during his 1987 concert tour of the Soviet Union, bandmate Kevin Dukes described it as the "Peter Gabriel flop".

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.

References

References

  1. Richard Metzger. (2010-09-22). "RAW POWER: IGGY POP INVENTS STAGE DIVING IN 1970 AND SMEARS HIMSELF IN PEANUT BUTTER". dangerousminds.net.
  2. Fielder, Hugh. (1980-03-08). "The Games People Play: Peter Gabriel and Random Hold".
  3. Hanna, Lynn. (1980-03-01). "Peter plays with politics and passion".
  4. Hegarty, Paul. (2020). "Peter Gabriel: Global Citizen". Reaktion Books.
  5. Blake, Mark. (December 2011). "Cash for questions: Peter Gabriel".
  6. Bill Clarke. (2008-09-07). "Bill Clarke: First Recorded Instance Of Crowd Surfing?". Bilclarke.blogspot.com.
  7. (2014-01-31). "Billy Joel: A Matter of Trust - The Bridge to Russia". Showtime.
  8. "Audience ejects crowd-surfer from classical concert". Telegraph.co.uk.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

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