Face to Face Looks the Other Way : Festival: The punk band, whose lead singer was knocked off the stage at Board in O.C., says it will let the matter drop.

The punk band Face to Face is letting bygones be bygones after a bizarre episode at the recent Board in Orange County festival, where Face to Face’s singer was knocked off the concert stage by Jason McLean, whose singsong speaking voice intones the “you gotta keep ‘em separated” catch phrase on Offspring’s hit, “Come Out and Play.”

As Face to Face played its own KROQ hit, “Disconnected,” during the festival at the Olympic Velodrome in Carson on May 6, McLean, who was observing the concert from backstage, came at singer Trever Keith from behind and pushed him. The singer, who had been standing at his microphone near the stage apron, toppled from the five-foot stage along with his guitar and a sound monitor. McLean, who has been described as a friend of Offspring but is not officially connected with the band, then dived from the stage himself.

Keith, 25, bruised his hip and back in the fall but was able to resume the performance.

Near the end of Face to Face’s set, he angrily told the crowd the man who pushed him was “the ‘keep ‘em separated’ guy from the Offspring.”

In a backstage interview about 90 minutes after the incident, a cooled-down Keith said there is no grudge between the bands and he regards Offspring--for whom Face to Face opened on a brief tour in December--as “cool guys.”

Keith declined to file a police report, saying he had met with McLean after the set, and McLean apologized.

“He said he didn’t mean to do it, it was an accident,” Keith said.

Last week, a Face to Face management spokesman said: “It’s over and done, and we’ll take the high road and assume it wasn’t [deliberate].” He added that Keith’s injuries were not serious and that he was able to leave on a scheduled tour three days after the Board show.

McLean, 22, could not be reached for comment. Offspring manager Jim Guerinot had no comment.

Paul Tollett of Goldenvoice, the Board festival’s promoter, said he had McLean, a backstage guest, ejected after the episode.

While musicians sometimes get pushed and knocked about when audience members engage in stage-diving, the punk rock ritual of jumping on stage, then diving off, there was no stage-diving by the audience at Board in Orange County. Tollett said he had never before seen a backstage guest shove a performer off a stage.