The U2 Live Audience

Originally posted by MirrorballBoy:What a thread this has become. No one on the world can compare the US crowd to the European crowd, besides U2 themselves. I think it's just hit or miss. When an American attends a European show with a lame crowd it's likely that he'd not do it again. Any European who watches US-DVD's with lame crowds might not go overseas just because he thinks the DVD-crowds are representative for the whole American audience. That isn't fair. We simply can not compare..

Originally posted by MirrorballBoy:[..]

I won't support people who try to tackle my ''no-one can compare"-theory. Haha, if I had the money I'd sent out some of our members including myself all over the world to attend a gig.

Originally posted by sonia_lastrega:[..]

We could totally design a randomised controlled trial to examine the differences between crowd engagement and enthusiasm at U2 stadium shows in different countries. I'm sure we'd have no trouble recruiting participants.

Now, how would we measure crowd engagement and enthusiasm?

Originally posted by Zoolov:I've seen U2 14 times live, from 1993 to 2009.

I was at Slane. I watched the Lemon breakdown in Oslo. And I caught three shows in the USA, in the spring of 2005. Among other shows.

New Jersey and New York City has GREAT crowds. Not clapping hands as much as the Europeans, but singing their hearts out. Loved it!

I don't know about best or worst crowd, but I can say that these days we are all more into filming and taking photos and texting during the shows then before. And that's why the crowds generally are more lame 2009 than they were when I saw U2 for the first time. Those days there were not that many distractions. You listened, you danced and you sang.

Hopefully, one day, we can go back to actually enjouy the show when we are there (live in the present!), and let the rest of the world know about it afterwards.

In short: put your cell phone down.

Originally posted by NLOTH_Victor:Yay, no more celphone, cameras, texting! I'd love that! People use to stretch their hands and stuff, now they want to film instead of enjoy.

But that's because people want to have pictures and the sound to remember. This would stop if U2 released the shows with official audio on their website along with some great pictures.

I'm hoping U2 will refresh their website... they are visionary in so many things, but in some others...

Originally posted by sonia_lastrega:[..]

I've stopped hoping that U2 will improve their website to anything approaching cutting-edge (at this point I'd settle for basic functionality). They don't understand the internet, as far as I can see, and they don't appear to be listening to anyone who does. Their online interaction with fans is largely poorly considered and ham-handed. They don't even appear to be learning from the ways that other bands and celebrities interact with fans online, which is a shame because some people are doing it really well.

I think as far as the live audience goes though, audiences aren't going to stop taking photos or videoing or tweeting at gigs. It's become part of our culture now to record and share our lives this way. I do think people need to be considerate of others in all ways while they're at a gig, and think about whether their enjoyment is infringing on someone else's. How we get that to happen is a question for better minds than mine though.