Doing the Amazing: Wheelchair Crowd Surfing

For a lot of people who use wheelchairs, one of their favorite pastimes is going to concerts.  It’s something you can still do whether you’re standing or sitting.  As long as your ears work, heck even if they don’t, concerts can be one of those universally accessible things that is fun for everybody.

What I love most about concerts is that as a wheelchair-user, you’re not getting a pared down version of the experience or anything like that, which is so often the case. It’s a harsh fact of life we kind of get used to, but not with concerts. We’ve uncovered three sweet videos of wheelchair-users enjoying concerts to the hilt.  Check out some wheelchair crowd surfing, and another musical gem you’ll never forget below.

Our first video is an interview with Rick Guardino, who was in the news last week for wheelchair crowd surfing at Lalapalooza in Chicago. The Chicago Tribune captured a pretty sweet shot of him up in the air, hoisted by crazed concertgoers, and it became an internet sensation. Check out the picture here.  He doesn’t have a spinal cord injury, he has cerebral palsy, but he knows the wheelchair-life at concerts personally.

And the wheelchair crowd surfing happened spur of the moment, which he explains in the interview (after moment of hesitation he decided to go all in). That’s my kind of guy.  Watch his interview

Our second video shows the actual act of crowd surfing, done by a brave paraplegic at a heavy metal concert. He is held up by 6 guys at the minimum, as he head bangs up in the air. It gets even better when the lead singer crowd surfs to his side to join, and they sing together. Watch this amazingness

And our third video comes from the Paraplegic Association of Quebec.  It shows one of their benefit concerts with two performers who are also spinal cord injured.  They are Kinimod & Psymon, a quadriplegic and paraplegic duo who rap, and they are quite good.

There are a lot of rappers out there, a couple of which who have spinal cord injuries like Professor X, and these two guys are up there right along with the big X. Gosh I hope they come out with some more stuff.  Watch them perform a song with a full band and some awesome special effects

Whether you enjoy going to large venues or smaller venues, a concert always treats a wheelchair user right.  Wheelchair seating may sometimes be a contentious issue, but as long as you’re tough and make sure you get the seats that you need, or find a venue that super cool and makes sure you get good seats (and go there often), you can’t go wrong with seeing live music.

What are your tricks for having a great concert experience?  How do you secure the best seats possible?

Watch the videos!

– Interview with the wheelchair-user who went wheelchair crowd surfing at Lalapalooza last week

– Paraplegic going wheelchair crowd surfing at a metal concert

– Quadriplegic/paraplegic rapping duo from Quebec performing at a festival