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trevgreg said:
They were good with that sort of thing. :up:
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Yes, they were! I would go right over to the person working the counter in the music section and place my order for the single. Nothing like getting the call from the store telling you that the disc had arrived. That was probably the only perk of the Borders music section. They robbed people with their CD prices.
 
I will also say that ZooTV live in Sydney solidfied my fandom quite a number of years later it was at this point that I said I need to see this band live - and that is still my favorite video and tour of all time.
 
I'm pretty certain it was Under a Blood Red Sky. I remember playing that one on my turntable over and over, more than War. Though Unforgettable Fire was the first one I bought the day it came out and midway through A Sort of Homecoming I was ready to march off with them, white flags in hand, wherever they were headed.

I had a bit of a bumpy patch after seeing my first Achtung Baby show in Philadelphia. I was actually kind of pissed off afterwards. I didn't take to their new "show." It took awhile to get it. Have to say I drifted away a bit with No Line.

Sort of funny, Invisible went in one ear and out the other when it first came out but when I downloaded SOI on Itunes, the first song that played was Invisible that was hanging around in there and it actually blew me away.
Love SOI, though if anyone had asked my opinion, I would have made it less 'studio' and more 'standing on a barge in the Liffey' (ie grittier)
 
Earnie Shavers said:
First on my radar: Rattle & Hum.

Sold: Achtung Baby. Actually really was The Fly. The single was actually released on my 13th birthday, and I guess that's the age where you are just ready for a song or album to really grab you and... oh, MUSIC. The Fly leading to Achtung was that for me. For a lot of people my age I guess it was just a little bit later with Smells Like Teen Spirit, but a lot of really 'new' stuff was going on then. The early-mid 90s really were genuinely amazing across the board, but especially so when you're that age and just discovering music in general.

Anyway, bought Achtung the week it came out. Can very clearly remember everything about and around hearing Zoo Station crashing through the speakers for the first time.
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Yes. We must be the same age. U2 were on my radar from R&H, but my most vivid memories were of AB era MTV. The videos, the Grammy's acceptance with the champagne bottle, the Outside Broadcast special of Edge talking while playing video games... it was all intriguing and a little disturbing for me as a young girl who identified with U2's Christianity, just becoming sexually aware myself as they became more transgressive; it was quite an era. Rock was not very sensual at the time but U2 were, and that and the irony were all a little over my head but totally fascinating.

I wandered away for a long time, but my adult fandom was reignited by the Slane DVD. It's everything that's good and all that's bad about U2 all at once-- either you hate it or you love it, I think. I was allllll in by halfway through UTEOTW.
 
I had a few songs on my first ipod in 2005; I think vertigo, beautiful day and with or without you. I liked them, but didnt really listen to them much.

Then around 2009 I heard One while on holiday New York, which I found amazing, then I downloaded their latest album then: No Line On The Horizon. I listened to it loads! I found it really inspiring while I was in art school, and from then on bought their back catalog
 
All That You Can't Leave Behind, acutally, I think it was the Boston DVD which really got me hooked. Then they came with Bomb and I was on the point of no return.


Obviously I'm only 22 , so I wasn't around for anything pre Pop.
Would have loved AB,Zooropa, JT, POP and BOY & WAR If I was mature and conscious enough around the time they where released :wink:
 
djerdap said:
Viva La Vida
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giphy.gif
 
Wow! Surprising and very cool to see so many people get into the band as a huge fan, with more recent albums.

For me, I got interested when my older brother would play boy/October/War all the time. I would lay next to his closed bedroom and listen through the door. Something about it captured me. He played it in the car all the time and as UF came out, it just kept me drawn in. At this point I was 10 so just discovering music in general.

What I really remember vividly, is me and my two older brothers driving around in our old oldsmobile waiting for the local radio station to debut the Joshua Tree in its entirety.
We drove around for over an hour listening to it, and I was blown away. That was IT.

Then I was obsessed as R&H came out, thinking Bono was all bad-ass spraying the graffiti. LOL. The performances of Exit really got me.

Then, I remember coming home from high school, and my mom had layed my Rolling Stone on the stairs that had come in the mail that day. It was the Achtung Baby cover with them with their new look. I just grabbed it and didn't even know it was them, until I looked again and my mouth dropped open. Achtung shot my fandom into the stratosphere. Saw my first show, ZOOTV in Chicago, during the first test run of small arenas. Changed my life. Then I slept three days on the sidewalk in Madison Wisconsin to be second in line for tickets to Outside Broadcast.

Anyway, it has continued. I am not as huge a fan of their 2000's material, but always have followed through every turn and change. Love SOI, and am really excited for SOE.

Love hearing these stories!
 
tuolumne said:
I'm pretty certain it was Under a Blood Red Sky. I remember playing that one on my turntable over and over, more than War. Though Unforgettable Fire was the first one I bought the day it came out and midway through A Sort of Homecoming I was ready to march off with them, white flags in hand, wherever they were headed.

I had a bit of a bumpy patch after seeing my first Achtung Baby show in Philadelphia. I was actually kind of pissed off afterwards. I didn't take to their new "show." It took awhile to get it. Have to say I drifted away a bit with No Line.

Sort of funny, Invisible went in one ear and out the other when it first came out but when I downloaded SOI on Itunes, the first song that played was Invisible that was hanging around in there and it actually blew me away.
Love SOI, though if anyone had asked my opinion, I would have made it less 'studio' and more 'standing on a barge in the Liffey' (ie grittier)
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Well said, War got me hooked but Under A Blood Red Sky knocked it out of the park. The best live EP ever IMO. :heart:
 
Such a nice thread! I loved reading all your stories! :heart:

Headache in a Suitcase said:
Achtung Baby started my interest, at a wee 12 years old.

Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me reeled me in at 15

Pop closed the deal at 17.
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elevated_u2_fan said:
I would say Achtung/Zooropa made me a fan but Pop really turned me into a crazy obsessed fan.
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My story is similar to what Headache and Elfa said.

Sat up and took notice of the band with Achtung Baby, specifically the music videos for One, Even Better Than The Real Thing, Mysterious Ways and Who's Gonna Ride. Loved all of those songs and videos very much! (Surprisingly I didn't see The Fly video until later) I don't think I bought the album immediately. I was a cash-strapped teenager living under my parents' roof.

Then, after that I totally enjoyed the videos for Numb, Lemon and Stay. Didn't get Zooropa yet. But U2 was fast becoming one of my fav bands.

Then in 1995 I was totally into Batman fever! Wanted to go see Batman Forever on the first day itself. And half my excitement was actually for Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me which I had seen and enjoyed several times on MTV. There was also some interest in Seal's Kiss From A Rose, though not as much as for U2.

I don't remember now if Passengers hit my radar or not at the time. I remember watching the video for Miss Sarajevo at some point on TV but really listened to the album only sometime in the early 2000s.

1997's Pop is when I became a rabid super fan! There was no turning back now! Absolutely thoroughly enjoyed all the singles starting from Discotheque and soon bought the album on cassette first. I think around this time or slightly before I also bought Achtung Baby, Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum as well. That's it! They were my numero uno band now. Thanks for reading this long nostalgia piece!

Earnie Shavers said:
Sold: Achtung Baby. Actually really was The Fly. The single was actually released on my 13th birthday, and I guess that's the age where you are just ready for a song or album to really grab you and... oh, MUSIC. The Fly leading to Achtung was that for me. For a lot of people my age I guess it was just a little bit later with Smells Like Teen Spirit, but a lot of really 'new' stuff was going on then. The early-mid 90s really were genuinely amazing across the board, but especially so when you're that age and just discovering music in general.
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:up::up: We are lucky to have been that perfect age during the early 90s!
 
ATYCLB for me,my brother and I both loved the elevation video. He bought the album,and the funny thing is he now hates U2 and is a guns n roses man! I went full super fan,have all the albums on vinyl and cd. And I have a tattoo! After I heard ATYCLB I went and bought best of 1980-1990,then the 1990-2000 double cd. After that there was no way back,best band ever.

Sent from my GT-P3110 using U2 Interference mobile app
 
I'm almost embarrassed to post mine, because I feel like I came to U2 way later in the game than I should have. I was aware of their 80s hits and liked most of them, but they struck me as way too earnest to be that interested in. It wasn't till AB came out and I heard Mysterious Ways that my interest was piqued, to put it mildly. I remember being all "THIS IS THE BEST SONG I'VE EVER HEARD!!!" As I later found out, The Fly was the first single...not sure if that didn't get airplay here, or if I just didn't notice. Either way, I began a lifelong love affair with that album, if not the band, at that time. Listened to it a lot, over the years, and I'm pretty sure I would have said it was in my top 5 albums of all time. Then, be it due to lack of exposure or being busy with life, they were sort of off my radar for Zooropa and Pop. But then ATYCLB came out, and I started paying attention again. Then I got the Slane dvd, and that pretty much sealed the deal for me, and pushed me from fan into batshit crazy obsession.

Eta - Huh. I just looked it up out of curiosity. The Fly charted at 16 in Canada, where Mysterious Ways charted at number 1.
 
Alrighty, let me start off by saying that I am young enough that I can't really remember a U2 album release besides SOI, so I am a rather new fan. Anyway, I was in English class two years ago and we had been discussing The Troubles and its effect on Irish literature. Near the end of class when we had some free time, my teacher decided to show us the video of Sunday, Bloody Sunday from UABRS on YouTube for whatever reason. I had heard of U2 and had sort of listened to a few songs of theirs, but I had never heard Sunday, Bloody Sunday before or known how incredibly passionate the band was. When I came home from school and my dad asked me about my day, I was still so impressed by the video that I told him about it, and he then told me that War was his favorite album (and still is). My dad had the CD, and I put it on my iPod, playing it on repeat for weeks. It's the first album I remember listening to that I knew was urgent. Besides just becoming a U2 fan with that album, that's when I began to really connect with music.
Now, as for becoming a superfan though, it had to be with the second U2 album I listened to, Achtung Baby. Going from War to Achtung Baby, I was amazed that one band could make two such different albums and still sound authentic. I knew after the fadeout of Love is Blindness that U2 was already my favorite band.
 
TimeToGo said:
Alrighty, let me start off by saying that I am young enough that I can't really remember a U2 album release besides SOI, so I am a rather new fan. Anyway, I was in English class two years ago and we had been discussing The Troubles and its effect on Irish literature. Near the end of class when we had some free time, my teacher decided to show us the video of Sunday, Bloody Sunday from UABRS on YouTube for whatever reason. I had heard of U2 and had sort of listened to a few songs of theirs, but I had never heard Sunday, Bloody Sunday before or known how incredibly passionate the band was. When I came home from school and my dad asked me about my day, I was still so impressed by the video that I told him about it, and he then told me that War was his favorite album (and still is). My dad had the CD, and I put it on my iPod, playing it on repeat for weeks. It's the first album I remember listening to that I knew was urgent. Besides just becoming a U2 fan with that album, that's when I began to really connect with music.
Now, as for becoming a superfan though, it had to be with the second U2 album I listened to, Achtung Baby. Going from War to Achtung Baby, I was amazed that one band could make two such different albums and still sound authentic. I knew after the fadeout of Love is Blindness that U2 was already my favorite band.
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Very cool. :up:
 
domo-kun said:
:hi5: We had no choice .
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:hi5: Yea, I liked Vertigo, got a few albums from a mate's parents, then started by getting AB and JT, all their 80s albums (as they're the cheapest), when I heard Pop I was pretty much a goner too. I still remember that I bought Zooropa when we had a school trip to Rome, lol. Same with Passengers, I just couldn't find them here, and went in a random record store in Rome and there they were. :lol:
 
Indirectly; October, end of 1981, moreso.. A Celebration/NYD and then War, but the first "day of purchase" was Live... UABRS... and then, well the rest is....
 
Galeongirl said:
:hi5: Yea, I liked Vertigo, got a few albums from a mate's parents, then started by getting AB and JT, all their 80s albums (as they're the cheapest), when I heard Pop I was pretty much a goner too. I still remember that I bought Zooropa when we had a school trip to Rome, lol. Same with Passengers, I just couldn't find them here, and went in a random record store in Rome and there they were. :lol:
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I remember seeing a movie which I think was called sunday bloody sunday as well.
About the troubles in Ireland. And it had SBS in it. I think I was about 14 or 15.
That's the first time U2 actually got my attention. I was shocked at how much emotions it brought up.

After finishing the movie , I ran upstairs, checked out more of their work. Pretty much just dowloading their entire catalogue with "limewire" :lmao:

And then I was stunned at how diverse they where. The melodies, the lyrics.
The thing that topped it off was discovering that my parents had the live in Boston DVD. (Which my parents told me I HATED.. Because they watched it so much.

personally I thought that was a Neil Young dvd instead but okay)

I saw Kite, Bad, The Fly, and finally was on the point of no return. HTDAAB catapulted it into a heavy desire to see them live. But I was too young, and ended up seeing them during 360.

Ha. I like this thread. Every story is quite fun to read.
 
domo-kun said:
I remember seeing a movie which I think was called sunday bloody sunday as well.
About the troubles in Ireland. And it had SBS in it. I think I was about 14 or 15.
That's the first time U2 actually got my attention. I was shocked at how much emotions it brought up.

After finishing the movie , I ran upstairs, checked out more of their work. Pretty much just dowloading their entire catalogue with "limewire" :lmao:

And then I was stunned at how diverse they where. The melodies, the lyrics.
The thing that topped it off was discovering that my parents had the live in Boston DVD. (Which my parents told me I HATED.. Because they watched it so much.

personally I thought that was a Neil Young dvd instead but okay)

I saw Kite, Bad, The Fly, and finally was on the point of no return. HTDAAB catapulted it into a heavy desire to see them live. But I was too young, and ended up seeing them during 360.

Ha. I like this thread. Every story is quite fun to read.
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I have that DVD here somewhere! :D Yeah, the last track was the Red Rocks version of SBS.
 
I grew up on U2 - my uncle in particular is a massive fan, went to all the Lovetown shows in New Zealand, etc. - so there was never a time when I was unfamiliar or uninterested in them. Songs like SBS and NYD were personal favourites from a young age. When the Best of 1980-1990 came out, I was eleven and bought a copy with my pocket money, since all the U2 we had was on record/cassette and I wanted something of my own to play on our shiny new CD player (perhaps a sign of coming from a poor background is that we didn't get our first CD player until 1998!). That definitely kicked things along. "Pride" and "Bad" were particular favourites; I remember I could only persuade a friend to listen to "Pride" after telling him what it was about because he saw the "In the Name of Love" subtitle and insisted that he didn't listen to "shitty love songs". Anyway, then when ATYCLB came out I asked for that for Christmas, and played it a bit but it didn't make the same impression as the Best Of. In 2002 I received the Best Of 1990-2000 for Christmas and that's when things really started to kick off from general interest to serious fandom. "Gone" in particular got a serious workout.

But none of those sealed the deal. I asked for more U2 for my birthday, which isn't much later than Christmas, but before that a family friend gave me copies of the Under a Blood Red Sky and Rattle and Hum videos. Those two are what did it; I can't attribute it solely to one video or the other because they worked in tandem for me. I've said it before, but the reason I'm on this forum and ended up on this lark was because of "11 O'clock Tick Tock" at Red Rocks and "Bad" on RAH. Hell, the videos in full got pretty worn out. I couldn't get enough of them. Within a few months I had all the albums, the live releases, some singles, registered here, got into bootleg trading, became the setlist guy ... oh the excessive fanatical indulgences of teenagedom. I'm glad I've grown out of that sort of over-the-top behaviour, but it led to good times.

(Well, I guess this is a contender for longest and most personal post I've made on EYKIW for quite some time.)
 
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