Did you know a young Phil Collins was in the audience when The Beatles filmed the concert sequence for the movie “A Hard Days Night”??? When the Beastie Boys filmed the music video for “Shadrach” off of their second album “Paul’s Boutique” they performed at a free show at the Reseda Country Club in the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles, California in September 1989.

One of the most memorable scenes in the video is this sequence where an unsuspecting audience member gets hit in the back of the head by a guy stage diving.

The guy that gets drilled in the back of the head was a 20 year-old Beastie Boy fan named Danny O’Connor. He would later gain fame as Danny Boy from another respected “white boy” rap group House of Pain.

How he ended up the video, Danny Boy explains:

“An announcement came over the radio, I think it was KROQ. I was working at the Warehouse Records and as soon as I heard it, I hung up my smock, punched the clock and ran down to the Reseda Country Club. I couldn’t wait to get there”

The official music video used a technique called “Rotoscoping” where each frame of film is hand-painted. The live video was purposely shot using bad black & white bank security cameras so the raw footage is mostly very blurry. Here is the raw footage of Danny Boy getting rocked by stage-diver actor Max Perlich.

Years later Danny Boy recalls telling Ad-Rock that he was the guy in the video that got slammed but it was not confirmed until 2000 when the Beastie Boys released the non-animated version of the video on the Beastie Boys Video Anthology (The Criterion Collection).

In the band commentary of the video the Beasties even say that it’s Danny Boy from House of Pain.

MCA – “One of the guys from House of Pain is in the audience” Mike D – “Max lands on Danny Boy doesn’t he, during the stage dive thing?” MCA – “Yeah, Yeah”

In 1992, Danny Boy came full circle and performed with his band House of Pain on the same Reseda Country Club stage the video was shot at. (Click here for full audio bootleg of House of Pain at the Reseda Country Club)

“I grew up going there. Actually saw my first show there. I was riding my bike by the Reseda Country Club in 1982 and heard Wall of Voodoo doing their soundcheck so I just walked in and stood on the side of the stage with my ten speed listening to Stan Rigdeway sing “Mexican Radio” which was a big hit in LA at the time. Seen many a show there. The best is when we played one of our first House of Pain gigs there. I felt like we had finally arrived.”

The degree of separation became even less in 1992 when House of Pain opened for the Beastie Boys during part of their “Check Your Head” tour with Ad Rock even putting a HOP sticker on his guitar. Click photo or link below to see who else added a House of Pain sticker to their guitar.