All I Want Is Your Zoo Station

[Zoots]

This is a pure nostalgia thread. I got into U2 by watching the videos from Achtung Baby on MTV and before that, I knew nothing about them. Even Better Than The Real Thing was probably the first song I heard and I loved it. I was unaware back then about the change in image and sound, obviously. But I have a question for the older fans. How was it like to go from humming All I Want Is You to popping Achtung Baby in your tape/CD deck for the first time and listening to this new track called Zoo Station? What feelings did you have? Positive or Negative?

 

[Pero]

I have feeling, nor negative nor positive but or

 

[watsons]

I actually was just thinking about that the other day. I remember the actual moment. I was such a huge Heartland, Silver and Gold, and Red Hill Mining Town fan and it was so surreal to pop in my AB cassette. I got it in my stocking at Christmas time. So, its Christmas morning and at first I was thinking, "what the freak is this?" during Zoo Station. The slightly distorted voice in the first verse totally threw me off. But I listened to the whole thing and I got to Horses and UV and was totally in love with it. So weird, though, definately.

 

[zooroper]

I got it in my stocking at Christmas time. So, its Christmas morning and at first I was thinking, "what the freak is this?" during Zoo Station.

 

[Jim]

Good question!

I remember being totally shocked -The Fly gave us a degree of pre-warning as to what was coming, but Zoo Station..streuth.

Feelings were mixed between loving it and hating it but it was a very exciting era. I guess some of the sadness was that the cowboy hats and bandana band that I had been following for three years was clearly gone forever.

Now I think 91-93 is my favourite U2 era.

 

[bedouin fire]

What feelings did you have?

everything i knew was wrong

 

[xana dew]

It was jarring. I used to watch these late night video shows (Night Flight was one) and I clearly recall seeing Night and Day and getting the first hint of what was to come. The Fly came out of nowhere. I first saw the video at about 3 in the morning. Perfect. It was outrageous. I couldn't believe my eyes. The band was completly recast! And the music! Bad ass. Edge's solo was ferocious.

I was blown away. Agog.

 

[NamelessStreets]

Even today. You could easily convince someone thats never heard of U2, that alot of their albums were done by completely different bands. Does that make sense? Imagine doing the jump to Zooropa from the 80's albums, no band in the world has morphed into different images and sounds. The answer to your question is it was a mighty fucking shock. Took some adjusting to and didn't know if I liked it. Achtung Baby is now my favorite album!

 

[deltau922]

Good thread. I think about this pretty much every time I listen to a song from Achtung Baby. I faked sick from school the day it came out so I could buy it as soon as the mall opened. I too got that WTF feeling. Zoo Station was a little different because Bono's vocals had sort of that muffled/feedback effect. I had already been playing the hell out of my Fly cassette single and liked it (it had taken time to grow on me too). The songs that really grabbed me from the start were Until The End of the World, Mysterious Ways and Ultraviolet. I put those three and The Fly on a tape and listened to those the most in my car while the rest of the album grew on me as well. By the time the tour came around to KC a year later, I loved the whole CD and loved it even more after seeing the songs performed live.

 

[neutral]

Well me and my friend from my dorm stayed up night before listening to our CDs and boots, we were just too excited to sleep. We went to a midnight sale of Achtung Baby at a local CD store that night, ran in and bought our CDs, popped it in his car stereo, and..... *silence*. Honesty we were just really taken aback. The first thing I said was, "what the hell is THAT?" We listened to the whole thing in almost total silence. As others have said it was exciting but some of it I loved, some of it I hated. Of course now I love all of it...well almost all.

 

[bsp77]

I am so jealous that I missed out on that experience. Like unnamed streets, I got into them because of Even Better Than the Real Thing on MTV. The video was the coolest thing I had ever seen. I am a straight male and I still have to say .

 

[Achtung Joshua!]

My friend and I both thought the name AB was stupid. Then we got the tape and looked at the cover and thought WTF. Then we read the names of the songs and started to think this was a joke. Without even hearing the album we were in a state of shock already. So we rushed home and listend to the whole thing. I pretty much hated all of it and thought WTF. I couldn't believe that this was the same band that made a records like War, UF and JT. But after accepting the change the album grew on me and eventhough I don't think it's their best there are a few gems on there.

 

[CTU2fan]

Wow, they "went away & dreamed it all up again" alright I'd heard The Fly and loved it, thought it was funky, different, and also plain rocked...I guess when I got the cd I liked The Fly, UTEOTW, and Acrobat as they stood out as the more "rock" tracks on the cd to me. I didn't come around to Zoo Station until I saw it played live. I love AB now, but I still miss pre-AB U2, guess I always will.

 

[Danny Boy]

I actually think their cover of "Night and Day" from Red Hot and Blue had me prepared for the new sound.

I was mildly surprised, but I loved it from the first listen.

 

[clipper699]

Re: Re: All I Want Is Your Zoo Station

everything i knew was wrong

I watched more tv.

 

[marshall faulk]

I was studying in Europe (Rome) for the first time when AB came out.

I had heard rumors of a new U2 album coming out but nothing specific. Late one night I was in a bar in Rome, not far from the Pantheon. There was a tv (with the sound turned down) up above the bar in the corner. Out of the corner of my eye I happened to catch the end of a music video and I thought the little box of white text in the corner said it was U2, but all I saw was a guy in black leather and huge sunglasses and a drummer in the background that looked vaguely like Larry Mullen. Nah, couldn't be - must be some European group I had never heard of.

A few weeks later I was browsing through a CD shop looking for U2 bootlegs (Record stores in Rome were filled with all sorts of bootlegs at the time and I had never seen any in the US).
Almost all the bootleg covers emulated the "U2 look" with a single mono-chromatic picture of the band or Bono or something like that. Then I noticed in the front was this crazy, multi-colored, multi-pictured CD cover that said "U2" on it - but U2 was spelled out on these garish looking rings on someone's hand, and there were naked women and little cars and all sorts of weird stuff on the cover. I figured it had to be one messed up bootleg, so it was worth a listen.

I took the CD up to the counter and (in my best combination of english/italian) asked the store clerk if I could listen to the CD before I decided to buy it. I was worried it might be some horrible audience recording or maybe not even U2 at all. The guy was gracious enough to oblige my request and tossed the cd in the stores cd player.

Within seconds of the CD starting to play I just shook my head and wondered what the hell the music was, because it was clearly not U2. I quickly turned to the clerk and told him he could turn it off because I was looking for a U2 cd and not whatever industrial techno-band was currently playing over the speakers. The clerk just smiled, laughed, and said in Italian what I interpreted as "That is U2 my friend, it's their new album". I was stunned. Zoo Station rolled into EBTTRT and I figured either my Italian was worse than I thought and I misunderstood this guy or he was just trying to sell the naive American some techno album. I was too embarrassed to ask again if he was sure this was U2, so my Lira and I soon parted ways and I left the store with my new Achtung Baby CD (still half convinced the guy had just sold me an album by another group).

Nevertheless, I headed back to the library of the school where I was studying, popped the disc in my Cd player and put my headphones on to hear whatever it was I just purchased. From the very first listen through the CD I loved One - and knew that this was indeed U2 - but I thought the rest of the disc was so out of character for the band. I wasn't sure if I should love it or hate it. My instinct was to like it, but I definitely didn't "get it" for the first few weeks I owned the CD.

About a month after buying the CD I happened to travel to Berlin for the first time. Upon arriving at Bahnhof Zoologischer Garten my inner U2 geek made the otherwise obvious connection between the song Zoo Station and where I found myself standing. People and trains heading off in all directions, train schedules and times in German emanating from overhead speakers, echoing all over the station. It was all so disorienting to me. It took all of 10 seconds, but suddenly the opening riff, the lyrics, the distortion of Zoo Station made a lot more sense. The train station was that song and that song was the perfect soundtrack for this train station.

After that, I couldn't get enough of the CD. All the layers of the album started to slowly peel back after that. The perfect soundtrack for a year studying and traveling in Europe for the first time. I was hooked.

Right time, right place, right album. Will never forget it.

 

[lazarus]

I had only been into U2 for a year and a half in 1991, although I'd heard them for years, appreciating a few songs here and there. So all of their pre-AB material was pretty fresh in my mind. I don't remember hearing much advance word about how strange it was going to be, but I was really excited for the World Premiere of The Fly on MTV.

I think the 4 people I watched it with were all U2 fans. Only 2 of us liked the song. I was totally blown away, and couldn't stop laughing. Clearly they were having some fun with themselves, and it was a breath of fresh air (which is why I never understood why people didn't like the Discotheque vid--it's the same thing with different clothes). I also remember how much that guitar solo killed. I guess I was also prepared for "the sound" because I had listened to a lot of industrial music like Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, Nitzer Ebb, KMFDM in my last 2 years of high school, and I could appreciate the influence.

After that I was hooked. My anticipation for the album reached a fever pitch by the time we went to the midnight sale at Tower. I raced home, put it in my discman, and the rest is blisstory.


laz

 

[Zoots]

just loving it!

Wow! Those were indeed some great memories. Thanks, everyone for sharing them. You reminded me of what were the most exciting years in music for me, 1991 and 1992. So many great albums... Achtung Baby, Ten, Metallica, Nevermind, Automatic For The People, Use Your Illusion...and on and on. But it's Achtung that's closest to my heart. I can only dream about how surreal it would've been if I'd actually been in Berlin at the time, after the Wall had fallen and things were changing at an alarming pace. I think all this really worked for the album. A revolution underway both inside and outside Hansa studios. As Marshall Faulk put it... right time, right place, right album.

PS: I can't stop talking about it, I wanted to add that Achtung was what turned me into a euronut and crazy about all things German and the language. Well, The Stay video helped too, along with One. By the way if you know what I'm talking about here, you'll love the movie Good Bye Lenin, which came out last year.

 

[Westport]

I stayed up late that night. I put my wife to bed and drove alone to Tower on Sunset Boulevard which stayed open to midnight to sell the first copies. It was a cool Los Angeles fall night. It might have been raining.

When I got back to the duplex I thought that I would listen to the first couple of songs. I went into the spare room where the stereo was and put on a set of headphones in the pitch black room. I pushed the play button and was just taken and blown away. Immediately with the tick, tick, tick of Zoo Station, the feeling was a combination of What the fuck is this? and This is just SO fucking awesome. They had gone out there and created something that was just so off the charts and had really nailed it.

I was up past three in the morning just listening to it.

Sometimes music just hits you a certain way - like you had always been waiting for this and it had finally been given to you. Like the best gift. I must have played Until The End of The World five or six times. The song One was another that I listen to again and again.

The whole night was that way.

Later, when I saw them on consecutive nights at the LA Sports Arena during the 1st leg of the Zoo TV tour, it was the same feeling. They had just taken it to another level. Just walking into the place with all of the screens and TVs, and dangling cars, you just knew that at something extraordinary was going on with the live show as well.

That first night I got to hold up Bono dressed as The Fly as he leaned out over the audience singing UTEOTW...and it was just pure magic.

That was Actung Baby

 

[xana dew]

Incredible stories here.

 

[dazzledbylight]

I am so jealous that I missed out on that experience. Like unnamed streets, I got into them because of Even Better Than the Real Thing on MTV. The video was the coolest thing I had ever seen. I am a straight male and I still have to say .

First, since in our USA culture in general it's been much more difficult for a man to comment on another man's sexiness, that it is for women to comment on their own gender's fabulous looking women..... I give you props for this ! What a vid

I don't remember which song i heard first EBTTRT, ZooST or The Fly the week they debuted it on which ever NYC station....PLJ? K-RocK, 'NEW.....

Unless WLIR/ WDRE <name change for a some years> [the great punk/new wave, later aklt-rock Long Island radio station}. Yeah, come to think of it <it's sorta coming back> I was probably still listening mostly to WDRE/WLIR at that point. But I fell in love with almost all the songs at once-- hearing each one on the radio as they were debuted over the week, or playing the <then> tape. I loved Zoo Sttn because of it's atmospheric surrealness, along with the melody/music, words etc.

AB still is my all fav U2 album {and in my all-time fav rock albums list}, but HTDAAB is now a vveeerrrryyy close 2nd. Even a '1 1/2" for me.