At summer music festivals, behavior can get a bit rowdy. Still, being physically ejected from a concert is more often associated with a rock concert than Handel.
Not so in Bristol, England, where Dr. David Glowacki, a visiting Stanford University scientist, was ejected from the theater by other concert-goers after he attempted to crowd surf during the the Hallelujah Chorus. Tim Morris, the artistic director at the Bristol Old Vic, where the concert was held, invited the audience to clap and whoop during the performance, but notes that Glowacki “got very overexcited,” The Telegraph reports.
According to witnesses, Glowacki began to lurch from side to side, hands raised and whooping, then attempted to crowd surf. The crowd was having none of it and deposited him outside. It seems that clapping and whooping are as wild and crazy as Brits are wont to get.
Glowacki defended his actions, which occurred last year.
“In the 18th century classical music wasn’t seen as having some sort of church-like solemnity and nor was theatre, people just went to have a good time because the music was brilliant,” he said.
He compared classical music to a “fossilized art form undergoing a midlife crisis” and complained that the director’s words supporting enthusiastic behavior were halfhearted.
“Witness what happened to me when I started cheering with a 30-strong chorus shouting ‘praise God’ two metres from my face: I get physically assaulted, knocked down to the floor and forcibly dragged out by two classical vigilantes,” he said.
Glowacki added in a lengthy post about the ordeal on his website Tuesday that he hopes future concert attendees can take his enthusiasm to even greater heights.
As far as I know, we have yet to see a sustained classical crowd-surf. I took baby steps to pull it off, but didn’t even come close. Shuffling of the feet combined with a little bit of cheering quickly catalyzed enough violence to get me ejected. The image of some science nerd crowd-surfing at a classical concert is simply too good to let go, and I sincerely hope that I do live to see the day when somebody can carry it farther than I managed. The amount of support that I have received over the past few days gives me confidence that I will see this happen.
