Who remembers....

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
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I get a reminder of this everyday. Here is a pic of my 5ft reminder of 1987.

13441joshuatree-med.jpg


Different view on the wall.

13441joshuatree2-med.jpg
 
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To forget the remembrance in the future possibilities of "sallabadawhotihya."

That's my memory of WOWY.
 
Zootomic said:
I first heard 'With or Without You' on MTV and I can remember my first impressions of the video far more clearly than my impressions of the song itself. My thoughts ran something like this:

"This is different for U2"
"Black & white? A little artsy but okay."
"Yowza, Bono's looking buff!"
"But what's with the ponytail?"
"Edge's hair got long"
"Adam looks bored"
"What's Edge doing with that guitar?"
"Hey, was that a nipple?"
"Wow, it's over already? Glad I recorded it. (rewind)"
You and I had kinda the same thoughts! Especially the

"Yowza, Bono's looking buff!"
line :drool:
 
Can´t remember the first time I listened to WOWY, but now something cool... Last year April my first child was born. A couple of days later when we slowly drifted back to reality and the real world, we turned on the radio to hear some music. And it was playing With or Without you! making it the first ever song to be heard by my son.
He can´t remember, so we´ll have to tell him later.
 
I was 12 and had heard and loved the UF album. I was driving in the car w/ my mom (obviously she was driving) and WOWY came on.....I loved it and so did she. I was more shocked that my mom liked "rock" music.:wink:
 
blahblahblah said:


.....WHY do you people KNOW THESE THINGS?!? :eyebrow:
Because it was mentioned several times on these boards that Tuesday was Bono's birthday and I was a huge fan back in 1989 when she was born and I remember hearing about it on MTV and reading about it in articles at the time that she had been born on Bono's birthday so I was capable of doing the math in my head that 2005 - 1989 equals sixteen and therefore I was able to ascertain that Tuesday was in fact Jordan's sixteenth birthday. Good enough reason for you? It's not like I stalk them or anything. Geez.
 
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i was only 2 when it came out BUT i do remember the time when i heard it out of the blue about 3 years ago, loved it and it persuaded me to go and buy the Best of 1980-90. that day kinda sticks out cos from then on the obsession began!
 
I was in my sophomore year of college. I had vaguely heard of this band called U2 but had somehow never heard any of their songs! (I don't know how I missed out for so long, especially since they were somewhat mainstream by 1983 and 1984. I guess I was too busy listening to Bruce Springsteen or something). Anyway, one morning in late February or early March I was in my dorm room getting ready for class with the radio on like usual, and this song came on. It was unlike anything I had ever heard before, very dreamy and ethereal at first but then the singer goes nuts and starts wailing - but it's really beautiful and passionate and yearning and sad, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Finally the song comes to the end and the DJ says that was the new song by U2, and it's called With or Without You.

I was a huge fan from then on. For a long time I couldn't afford to buy any albums, so I taped their songs off the radio. I also spent a lot of time reading up on the band in Rolling Stone, Time magazine, etc. Good times...
 
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I too was a sophmore in college (Rutgers), but had been a fan for five years already. How had you not really heard of them yet? (!)
 
annej5 said:
I was 16 and remember it like it was yesterday. I waited for it to come on the radio to tape it, then listened to it over and over. When they released the video my friends and I thought it was too blurry, we couldn't see Bono well enough :) That album was life changing.

Exactly! I was 15, though, but the rest is the same for me :) I loved the song from the minute I heard it and probably overplayed it by the time JT was released!
 
I don't remember the exact day it was released but I remember the first time I saw the video. Remember when MTV would do their World Premier Videos at 7pm e.s.t.? I live on the west coast so every day we would go home from high school (I was about 16ish) and hang out watching MTV. I remember thinking, "God he is gorgeous! and this song is incredible." I had been a fan since Live Aid, but I was smitten for life after WOWOY.
 
Zootomic said:

Because it was mentioned several times on these boards that Tuesday was Bono's birthday and I was a huge fan back in 1989 when she was born and I remember hearing about it on MTV and reading about it in articles at the time that she had been born on Bono's birthday so I was capable of doing the math in my head that 2005 - 1989 equals sixteen and therefore I was able to ascertain that Tuesday was in fact Jordan's sixteenth birthday. Good enough reason for you? It's not like I stalk them or anything. Geez.

"geez", man...don't try and put me in a bad light over such a small thing...christ alive, calm down...I'm just saying I'm thankful I don't have an ANORAK knowledge of a band's birthdays! :eyebrow: Who said you stalk them? I just think it's a bit odd how so many people keep tabs on whose birthday's when...? Okay?
 
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ree5669 said:
I was a junior in high school...I remember it and liked it instantly, even with its differences from previous songs. I still remember wishing my parents would let me go to the concert. No dice. I was so sheltered.

Remembering the days of requesting music---waiting hours for a song to be played-- and eventually recording it off the radio. When I got a dual cassette player to record a cassette to another tape was high tech. Interesting thoughts considering I am typing to people all over the world while listening to my ipod's hundreds of songs...

With Or Without is one of the many. ;)

Life is good.

This was exactly like my life! Nice to know kids are so similar around the country (I was in California and born in '70).
 
RobH said:
I too was a sophmore in college (Rutgers), but had been a fan for five years already. How had you not really heard of them yet? (!)

My family didn't have cable so we didn't have MTV back in the days when they played U2 long before most American radio stations caught on to them. Just about the only music I was exposed to was what was on the local Top 40 station or in my friends or older siblings' music collections, and none of them were into U2 at all.

Crap, I lived a lousy, sheltered life growing up! :|
 
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I bet that vcr even had a remote control that was attached by cables!

Thank goodness, I thought I was the only one who saw the nipple. My husband never sees it! Can't believe it got by MTV.
 
blahblahblah said:


"geez", man...don't try and put me in a bad light over such a small thing...christ alive, calm down...I'm just saying I'm thankful I don't have an ANORAK knowledge of a band's birthdays! :eyebrow: Who said you stalk them? I just think it's a bit odd how so many people keep tabs on whose birthday's when...? Okay?
blahblahblah...
 
God yes.
The "sellout" accusations started flying back then... little did people know what was coming!!!

I remember staying awake for almost 3 days straight, huddled by my radio, waiting to catch it again and again... couldn't get enough of it, this new direction in their sound, a "new style" of singing...

I remember girls at school complaining that they couldn't dance to it :madspit:
 
Bono's shades said:


My family didn't have cable so we didn't have MTV back in the days when they played U2 long before most American radio stations caught on to them. Just about the only music I was exposed to was what was on the local Top 40 station or in my friends or older siblings' music collections, and none of them were into U2 at all.

Crap, I lived a lousy, sheltered life growing up! :|

Actually, this is something I've always wandered about. How many of you Americans discovered U2 through college radio? I used to read about this in their interviews (and of course their 1988 Grammy speech) but noone here's really mentioned it. Was it an underground thing? (I first heard U2 here in Australia on a public/community radio station in 1981, they weren't really played on commercial radio till "War".)

Was this similar in the US?
 
I was 8 years old and thanks to my mom heard it on the radio. I loved it and ended up swiping my older brothers tape to listen to over and over.

Blueeyedgirl- my mom and I use to listen to a college radio station based out of Anaheim, California in the late 70's early 80's and if I remember right that's where we first heard alot of early U2. I was young, so I just listened to what my hippie mom would put on. I had no clue who U2 were till I was much older, but I remembered their music.

*sigh* My mom was a kick ass music fan, she also schooled me on the goodness that is Peter, Paul, & Mary. CSN&Y, and The Beatles.
 
I was in my mommy's tummy at the time, so I don't remember a darn thing about that. :shrug:

I think my first memory of that song was when I was about 5. It was hard growing up. I WAS the only U2 fan in my family. Then we went to the Phoenix 2 show on April 15th, and I converted them. Now they are all addicted. :rockon:
 
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I was born in September '86.

As a youngster the only three songs that mattered to me were Streets, WOWY & ISHFWILF, in that order.

Then came Bad.

Then came Achtung. And the Fly.. :drool:

All the years from birth to the release of HMTMKMKM were just a blur of U2, musically. Even aged 8 all I cared abouyt was U2. I would watch Zoo Sydney, UABRS the Achtung vid etc... continuously. I was SO excited about HMTMKMKM because it seemed like forever since Zooropa came out(a year was a long time for a 7 year old).

Then came Oasis, my first non U2 interest, followed by Blur.

Then came Discotheque and Pop. I hated both, and went off U2. :(

Beautiful Day came and went and I thought 'U2 is back' but still only took a passing, but keen interest in the band. They were still my favourite of all time but I was discovering too much new music, I was at an age where I could really explore.

Then came September 2004. For some reason (it wasn't Vertigo) I just got hooked on the band. Found Interference. Went back into all the old stuff.

Rediscovered the Joshua Tree.

Rediscovered Achtung.

Discovered Boy-UF

AND THEN.

Appreciated POP.

JT isn't so much a life changing album as the boys are just a life changing band. Definately the soundtrack to my life thus far. And I can only hope for many, MANY years into the future.
 
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I remember being at the record store the night before it was released (I knew the owner and he let me have a peek at the new album in the back) I then convinced him to sell me an LP and a cassette the night before because I was going on a road trip early the next morning - he finally sold me both. The next day I went on a road trip across Canada (Winnipeg to Vancouver) and probably listened to the album at least 50 times during the trip. That year I saw U2 three times (Rochester, New York and St. Paul Minnesota (2 shows)) and met them twice as well. 1987 was a very U2 year for me...Unforgettable.
 
I had waited years for that album to come out. I was so afraid that U2 was disbanding after Unforgettable Fire. Then I saw them in 86, where they started to emerge as a mega band with the Conspiracy of Hope tour for Amnesty International. So yes, they were alive, but where was their next album!

It was March 12, 1987 right? Was that the release date? Anyway, I actually bought it on the day it came out, when Tower Records opened that morning. I was 29 years old.

It physically looked beautiful. I was so scared that U2 would not lay a golden egg, but I got it home, and the label, with the Joshua Tree -- oh yes, the look was perfect. God I hope this record sounds as good as it looks! I remember shaking as I placed it on the turntable. It seemed between 1984 to 1987 that maybe the band was spent or doing the typical 80's split-up-thing. I was so hoping to be wrong with that thought.

I played it. Things were never quiet the same again, in popular music or in me. The sun was shinning through the window onto the room and onto me, it was warm as I laid there with my headphones, in my mind seeing that rain cloud in the desert sky.
 
I played it. Things were never quiet the same again, in popular music or in me. The sun was shinning through the window onto the room and onto me, it was warm as I laid there with my headphones, in my mind seeing that rain cloud in the desert sky.

Beautiful..maybe it is just my beers tonight, but that is beautiful. :)
 
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