Should crowd surfing be banned following a fan's catastrophic injury at a Trophy Eyes concert?

As a lifelong gig-loving, festival-going, devoted music fan as well as a musician myself, my thoughts and well-wishes go out to 25-year-old Bird Piché, who is said to have a broken neck after John Floreani of Australian punk rock band Trophy Eyes stage-dived into the crowd.

Piché, 24, has had to undergo extensive surgery after the incident which happened at the concert of the Newcastle-based band in Buffalo, New York

Family friend Leo Wolters Tejera told 7 ABC Buffalo: "Her neck was definitely broken, and as of today, she has feeling in her arms."

Given this early prognosis, I also feel deeply for lead singer Floreani, 32, and the rest of Trophy Eyes. When you're insanely passionate about the music you make and the scene you play it in and have a close affinity with your fans, the thought of being responsible for an accident of this magnitude would be a terrible burden to bear.

The band is said to be "truly heartbroken" and added: "The situation has shaken us all to our core, and we ask for patience while we look to help Bird navigate this difficult time.”

Floreani went to the hospital with Piché and her family in an ambulance, and now the band is back on the road, continuing their tour across the US.

Incident raises bigger questions

But broader questions are now being asked about moshing, the practice of stage diving, and whether they should be banned altogether.

However, the venue where the accident happened, Mohawk Place, a tiny club with a capacity of 237 people that hosts indie rock, punk, and metal bands, already had a strict policy against moshing and stage diving in place since 2011.

The club's manager reiterated in a statement: "There were signs posted everywhere in the venue and notice was included in the emails for this show with the show's promoter and the band themselves."

Yet moshing, stage diving and crowd surfing are still staples of the metal and punk scenes, of which Trophy Eyes has been a part for ten years. The band's latest release, Suicide and Sunshine, was an ARIA Top 10 release in 2023.

For the uninitiated, moshing is a body-bruising, bone-shaking "dance" where audience members combatively push, slam, and smash into each other for kicks and giggles.

David Attenborough would have a field day narrating the feral goings-on in a mosh pit as the crowd obliterates each other as they "dance", their hearts out to hard-core, aggressive music. While it isn't for the faint-hearted, fans who are into it love it.

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Over the years, I've seen many a mosh pit from afar as I value my safety too much, including one memorable time seeing Nirvana at the Big Day Out in 1992 when the whole dance floor at the Horden Pavilion turned into a gigantic mosh pit.

Not the first time things have gone wrong

Tragedy struck in 2001 at the Big Day Out when Jessica Michalik, who was 24, died after being crushed in a mosh pit during headliner's Limp Bizkit's set.

Stage diving is the practice of jumping from the stage into the crowd and being supported by the audience as stage divers are passed around above people's heads.

Also known as crowd surfing, it originated at a Rolling Stones concert in the 1960s. Famous stage divers, including Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Eddie Vedder, Iggy Pop, and Slip Knot's Sid Wilson, made it an essential part of their live performances.

It's not just the singers and musicians in the band who stage dive; audience members also actively participate in the practice. They climb on stage, dive, swan dive, and even backflip out into the audience.

Yet sometimes, stage diving can go wrong — very wrong. The crowd just doesn't catch you. A 28-year-old fan died in Switzerland after a dive at a Suicidal Tendencies gig.

Women crowd surfers report being groped and sexually assaulted, or like in Bird's case, audience members can get seriously injured.

In 2010, the Associated Press reported punk/funk/ska outfit Fishbone forked out $1.4 million to a fan who sued them over a broken skull and collarbone after singer Angelo "Dr. Madd Vibe" Moore landed on her in Philadelphia.

Fans divided on whether stage diving should be banned

So should moshing and stage diving be banned altogether? After the Trophy Eyes incident, fans are taking opposing sides in discussions online.

"Kinda mixed feelings," said one on Reddit. "It's an apparent freak accident, and I think it's weird to villainise the band/singer for not following venue protocol when not following no moshing/surfing/stage diving rules is undeniably the standard in this scene.

"Simultaneously feel their statement ... seems [to be] avoiding responsibility, even though I'm sure him and the whole band are profusely apologetic and expressed that in person... Just a horrible situation."

Another fan wrote: "I work as a nurse in a neuro-trauma unit and I have a lot of patients with spinal cord injuries and I have to say, this is a serious situation. I feel for this girl.

"As much as I loved stage diving when I younger, I didn't realise then just how dangerous it could be."

"I've seen Trophy Eyes live a few times and a large portion of the crowd were youngish girls in their teens and early 20s. When you have a super tall dude like John stage diving into a crowd with smaller, younger girls, someone is bound to get hurt.

"I'm not blaming John for this, it was clearly an accident and nobody expected this to happen at a show. However, bands do need to be aware of who is in their crowd and what can happen."

A laundry list of injuries

Fans have also lined up to share their injuries. "Yeah someone knocked me out from a stage dive at a show and I got a concussion and I'm still dealing with neck and vestibular problems from it a year later,” said a music lover.

"I had someone dive from the corner of the stage at a diagonal angle to the middle so he's diving at people that aren't looking at him," said one fan. His whole body landed at my neck ... I just walked out of the show immediately I was in so much pain. It took nine months of recovery before I could turn my head without any pain."

So I’m in total agreement with one fan on Reddit who said: "The older I get, the more I think stage diving f**king sucks." It's far too high a price to pay when you've gone out to see a band, but I'm not a young kid who feels invincible at a hard-core music show.

So are the days of the mosh pit, stage diving and crowd surfing numbered? Apparently not, if a comment on Reddit is to be believed.

The fan saw the Trophy Eyes at their next concert. "I was at the Detroit stop tonight, and he [singer John Floreani] was CLEARLY devastated.

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"Don't get me wrong, they killed it, but you could also feel the tone and energy every time there was a surfer. I wish I could have hugged him and let him know he is a true professional."

I wish I could give Piché a hug as she embarks on a difficult road ahead. There is a GoFundMe to help her with her medical expenses and recovery.

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