Sunday, May 21, 2006

Improv everywhere

My friend Eric's brother is in a comedy group called Improv Everywhere. They do all kinds of pranks and practical jokes around New York City, their mission being to cause "scenes of chaos and joy in public places."

My favorite prank of theirs is their U2 rooftop concert. As many of you probably remember, back in January U2 finished their Vertigo tour in Madison Square Garden in NYC. Turns out that one of the guys from Improv Everywhere happened to live in a building across the street from the venue. He also had access to the roof of the building. Given U2's prior record of playing on rooftops, the pranksters decided to play a little trick on the crowd that had started lining up the street for the actual concert. They get up on the rooftop, pretending to be U2, and start playing "Where the streets have no names". As you can see in this video, the crowd goes insane. So much so, that when the cops show up to charge them with noise violations, everybody on the street starts screaming "Let them play! Let them play!"

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You can see a complete list of their missions here.