Stage Diving at Sawtell – Hoodoo Gurus

Stage diving and crowd surfing is a phenomenon that has become popular over the last 10 or 15 years. The idea being that after diving from the stage, the crowd will catch you and you won’t end up on your arse on the floor. When the crowd is in good form you can stay aloft for quite awhile.

When it doesn’t work, it can occasionally lead to tears. I was having a bourbon with my Brother on the weekend when he told me a funny story I thought I’d share here.

He was working with the Hoodoo Gurus on their last ever tour and was doing a gig at Sawtell RSL on the NSW north coast. The club is typical of most. Stage, dancefloor then an area for tables & chairs all set up in nice long rows. Quite often you will set up the mixing position at the rear of the dancefloor in front of the tables. This is usually an unobtrusive spot but, depending on the act and venue, you still need to create a “bunker” out of roadcases to keep the punters and their drinks off the gear when they get rowdy.

This particular night the band and crowd were in great form and the stage diving was progressing well. Suddenly my brother noticed a guy at the back of the room. He had climbed onto the table and seemed to be trying to work out whether he could dive from the tables, over the mixing bunker, and into the crowd from the rear.

Off he went at blinding speed along the tables with drinks flying everywhere. After a few stumbles along the way, he hit the end of the row of tables at pace and launched himself into the air. Having underestimated both the distance and his ability to fly he ended up landing face first on the mixing console which knocked him out cold! Security was called and the guy was carried off for treatment. This all came as quite a surprise to the poor bugger standing there operating the sound gear that night. They normally don’t attack from the rear.

My brother says they spent quite a while on their hands and knees looking for knobs that the guy knocked off the mixer with his face. They didn’t find them all and he still suspects that the guy left that night with a mixer knob embedded in his forehead!