Stage Diving

Stage diving is something we may all have seen or heard about, but how many of us have actually done it? If you were here now, you'd see me raising my hand sheepishly and desperately trying not to make eye contact with you.

I was at a Morbid Angel concert at Newcastle Riverside in 1995 with my friends Mike and Alan. We were all suitably well-oiled before we arrived, and someone even managed to urinate off a bridge over the motorway onto the windscreens of irate motorists below (I'll spare their embarrassment, but it wasn't me or Alan) on our way to the venue.
The opening act was a Norwegian black metal band whose name I can't remember, but Mike really wanted to see them. I wasn't too impressed, so I used this time to pound a stupid amount of beer and whisky at the bar.
By the time Morbid Angel took to the stage, I was swaying wildly from side to side and was barely able to string a sentence together. After a few songs, a few people had started crowd surfing and stage diving. Alan decided that this looked like fun and he handed me his wallet for safe-keeping which resulted in me pouring most of his small change over the beer-stained floor. I gave him a leg up and away he surfed. He landed safely on his feet next to us a minute or so later, grinning like a madman. Now it was my turn.
Alan helped me up onto the top of the crowd (there can't have been more than 200 people in front of the stage - it's a pretty small venue) and off I went. As I was passed over the crowd I felt a sense of weightlessness which was only slightly ruined by a couple of punches to the ribs from angry metalheads. I was just getting into the floaty feeling when suddenly I was standing on the stage only inches from the band. I glanced to my left and saw a rather burly bouncer heading in my direction and I knew what had to be done. I looked out over the crowd and threw myself forward. It was less than graceful and had this been Olympic diving I wouldn't have scored more than 1.5 for my efforts. Unfortunately for me, being a quite heavy 6'3" (that's 190cm or 0.0019km, metric fans) made people reluctant to catch me as I lurched towards them, and in a truly biblical moment the crowd parted like the Red Sea. My moment of glory was over and I was lying on the floor in the middle of the crowd with a pain in my back and my ego in critical condition. Mike and Alan helped me up and we resumed watching from the safety of the back of the room. I think if I hadn't had so much to drink I could have been seriously injured, so I got off lightly with a slight twinge in my back that lasted for over a year.
After the show we waited by the stage door so Mike could get his CD signed by the band. After waiting for over an hour, the band came out and were more than happy to sign Mike's CD and chat with us for a little bit. This was where my night of shame got taken up a couple of notches. In the middle of our chat, I blurted out "excuse me for a minute" and turned and vomited violently against the wall as the members of Morbid Angel looked on. Oh well.