The Official "FAN ACTIONS" thread. What's your favorite?

[bathiu]

Are those fan actions still "fun" actions or is it now a competition between the cities?
(and I don't mean this in a negative way)

Quotes from Tour Diary of Willie Williams...

The beggining: Poland - Chorzow

It was a great gig, entirely due to the audience being so up for it. The best moment was going into New Year’s Day where the audience, entirely of their own volition, produced flags and scarves. Everyone on the floor of the stadium had red, everyone in the grandstands had white, so the whole stadium turned into a huge Polish flag. I have never seen an audience do anything like it before – getting it together to surprise and delight us. I think my mouth must have fallen open. Who organized this? The fact that it was premeditated made it all the more extraordinary; an audience consciously plotting to put on a show for the performers. It was absolutely wonderful, humbling, thrilling all at the same time. A great, great crowd, and a unique atmosphere.

Paris:

At the end of Running to Standstill the crowd on the stadium floor took part in their own Polish-style spontaneous audience participation moment. A large portion of the audience near the stage held up white balloons, which turned the floor into a very eerie looking sea of white spheres. It was a perfectly still and very emotional moment, though I laughed because I could see what was inevitably going to follow it. As the band crashed into Pride, all the balloons were thrown up into the air and were batted about all over the place, turning the stadium into a gigantic Chuckee Cheese children’s party. Well it’s a celebration of sorts. We absolutely loved the fact that another city had produced its own audience participation spot. God bless the Internet. I wonder if we are going to get into a situation where cities start attempting to outdo each other? Go for it, I say – create your own audience tribute. How about throwing bundles of large denomination bank notes at the mix position? Just a suggestion…

Milan

Following this, the band went into ‘Sometimes…’ which Bono dedicated to his father Bob Hewson. As the song progressed all the members of the audience in the grandstand facing the stage produced large squares of cardboard and held them up, a la Russian Olympics, to make an Irish flag, an Italian flag and the words “HI BOB” in between, in giant letters. I think Bono practically stopped singing when he saw it (you have to admit it would be a surreal sight – a stadium wide message to your dad). Last week we talked about perhaps trying to organise something along the lines of the Polish flag tribute for the video shoot here, but in the end felt it would be next to impossible and besides, there’s something not quite right about carefully rehearsed spontaneity.
Instead, the U2 audience once again left us speechless. I can only imagine what this might turn into as the tour progresses and inter-city rivalry kicks in (and who said organisation isn’t Italy’s strong point…?)

Gothenburg - "white wave"
from U2log

U2.se’s ‘white wave’ crowd participation plan was a big success. Bono even changed the lyrics to I Will Follow and apparently exclaimed: ‘Oh my God, what have we here?’ The crowd, reportedly ‘laid back and polite’ while queuing turned into a somewhat over excited mob in the front pit, but an awesome audience overall.

Wich one do you like the best?
Lets turn this thread into a "poll", what "fan action" do you like the best?

Please post as many pictures from those actions as you can (from all: previous or future actions, please )

 

[bathiu]

I'll post everything that I've found from (the first) Polish fan action:

 

[Axver]

Gotta hand it to the Poles: the original and the best.

 

[Lila64]

that did seem to be pretty impressive (Poland that is...)

 

[iriden]

Cough cough...don't think I'm writing it because I think all the other fan actions were a crap...but I can assure that Milan coreography has been in plan since january...it was not because polish did the flag thing...so here it is our coreography

and Bono raising his hands...I think one of the best experiences in my life...I still can't believe it

 

[bathiu]

and Bono raising his hands...I think one of the best experiences in my life...I still can't believe it

ahh, yes - the band's reaction... I can tell you when Bono turned his jacket inside out to join the "red crowd", bowed to us, while Adam and Edge where smiling with faces of "OMG" and "good work"... I was really for the whole song...
(and I'm a guy)

 

[gareth brown]

Gotta hand it to the Poles: the original and the best.

 

[neutral]

Gotta go with Chorzow.

Thanks for all those pics, I think I had only seen the 2 from u2.com before now.

 

[Liesje]

I'll go with Poland, but I think your list is missing one. Didn't some fans make words out of all their bodies on the beach in Holland as U2 flew in? I guess it doesn't technically count since it wasn't at the concert....

 

[the soul waits]

Actually, there's another action that's not on there, allthough I have to admit it's not as spectacular as the Poland-one:

In Brussels, around 2.000 people wore a white little flag around their wrist and waved them when the band came on stage.

The action was called "Warm Welcome" since it was U2's first european gig this tour.

 

[Tina]

Actually, there's another action that's not on there, allthough I have to admit it's not as spectacular as the Poland-one:

In Brussels, around 2.000 people wore a white little flag around their wrist and waved them when the band came on stage.

The action was called "Warm Welcome" since it was U2's first european gig this tour.

Glad to see someone remembers us. And to tell you the truth, there were 4.000 of them in the fronstage zone. We had almost 1.000 registrations on our website. But due to some wrong articles in a few newspapers, people thought we were bringing lots of them ourselves. Luckily, a lot of people started cutting sheets at the very last instant, so we had 3.000 extra with us to distribute to the crowd on the day of the venue.

Our goal was to give U2 a warm welcome in Europe, but meanwhile support ONE - MAKE POVERTY HISTORY. It looked great from where we were standing. And we had so much fun doing it. 8 of us have handed out those extra 3000 bands one by one. Talking to everyone in the crowd. We had people from everywhere in Brussels, even 6 Australian girls )

It looks like a lot of fans all over europe have the same feeling we had. So happy that the band play in their country, we just have to make it an even bigger party !