You first impression when you heard U2

[starsgoblue]

EXACTLY!!! It's like having an extended family!

Lol, I think the fan base for U2 is just the best...better than Jimmy B. or The Dead (I know I might get crap for saying that, but hey that's what I think!). Maybe we all should start calling ourselves: Lemonheads

 

[radioskugga]

I had been exposed to U2 earlier, but it wasn't until around 2000 i started to think: "hey, how come i haven't listened to those guys more"... So i catched the Beautiful day and Stuck in a moment videos on mtv, and liked it alot... but the real "kaboom" in my mind came when my friend sent me SBS on mp3. I listened to it twice and then i knew that this was the best song that i had ever heard.

And now i am a complete nerd

 

[BluRmGrl]

Goose bumps....That was my 1st reaction to New Year's Day in early '84. I've never gotten over the way it just hypnotized me and continues to do so. I'm tied to that first memory of them every time the song plays, even 20 years later.

Funny - it's similar to my reaction to the new album. Except this time it's more like my skin crawling 'cuz I'm jonesing for new music! GEEZ! could November get any slower?!?!

 

[oceane]

It's nice to hear all those stories, very touching. Also, I'm amazed how so many of you got into U2 at a rather young age!

For me, although I cannot remember the first time I heard U2, since I've always liked them as far as I can remember (but without getting any of their albums for a long time), I can remember the first time they really 'hit' me like it was yesterday.

I was 15, so it's about 9 years ago, and one day I heard WOWY on the radio at my cousin's house in the middle of the night. I sort of knew the song from before, but never really paid attention. But that time, I simply had the closest thing to a 'revelation' that I ever had in my life. I don't know how to explain how I felt hearing WOWY but... I was in a complete state of shock, I had never, ever heard anything like that. I literally had the feeling that it was the song I had been waiting for all my life, that it was just something more than any other music I had heard before (and I've been a serious music fan for all my life). I can especially recall when the last guitar part (those really simple chords Edge plays at the end) started, I thought ' that's IT, I mean, this what music is meant to be'.

The weird part is that, because WOWY had such a strong effect on me, I decided NOT to get JT, because I didn't want to 'ruin' it by being able to hear it as many times ad I wanted. I know it sound strange, but for TWO YEARS, I was completely obsessed with hearing WOWY on the radio, in a bar, or at a friends house, but refused to buy the album... I don't quite understand why I waited so long to get it, but I must say that my 'relationship' with that song was for two years like the one you have with that special love that you could never really live at the fullest, or just for a short time...

Then in 1997 PopMart came, I decided I wanted to see U2 live, got a ticket, got JT, AB and War and became totally addicted to U2 as a whole, and just could not believe how come I had not become a hardcore U2 fan before!

But to this day, every time I hear the first notes of WOWY, I get this big shiver down my spine like during the time when every time I would hear it, the world around me would literally stop revolving ...

 

[JesusWalks]

floored

If God was a rock star, he would have this singers voice.

-my first thought when I first heard u2.
-my face when I saw the members and Bono espescially

 

[Sue DeNym]

Literally? I think it was

"Wow! Who IS that?"

Sounds like me! I saw the NYD video on MTV in 1983, and was totally blown away. Haven't been the same since, and thank God for that!

 

[A_Wanderer]

I first started to like U2 when I first heard WOWY, then I heard Achtung Baby and liked that and then a break of sorts then I got into Pop.

It was (and is) the best music I have ever heard. There is so much range and depth to their songs, a song for every occasion one might say.

Now when I first saw U2 I was looking at Gloria on the music video show. I watched in fascination, then looked in the mirror and I had a revelation, I decided to grow a mullet.

 

[Jim]

My first thoughts were "...loud...man shouting...don't like it".

At which point this 11 year old kindly asks his 14 year old room-mate brother to turn it it off (UABRS) and put his little brother's Dire Straits tape back on

 

[Evalicious]

I never paid any attention to U2, i liked limp bizkit, korn and stuff like that, but when i heard beautiful day for the first time in october 2000, i sat down onto the floor and realized that i had never heard anything that beautiful in my life......

 

[Tomer]

My brother downloaded beautiful day and elevation
i begged him practically to play them over and over and over

 

[elevation]

Nice thread

When I first got my hands on a recording of Achtung Baby (A Christmas present) I was embarrassed and frightened - literaly. 15 years old, coming from a rather conservative family and there on the cover: A snake and a naked lady. And inside the booklet: A naked man. It really couldn´t get much worse. I thought U2 would be a heavy metal band, I had never heard about. I remember my older sister [who was much more into music at the time] asked: Now, you DO you listen to U2, right? I nodded, having no idea, who U2 were.

I hid the cassette under my other Christmas presents and didn't dare to pick up again to show it to the rest of my family. Right before bedtime I finally listened to Achtung Baby for the first time. I was ., no scared is more like it. Several months went by without I even dared to pick it up (Ironically, during those months U2 "paid a visit" to Denmark - yep, I´m one of those poor bastards that missed out on Zoo TV). But I couldn´t get those opening riffs out of my head and I convinced myself that it was safe to listen to the tape just ONCE more. And so I did...and once more. In the following months you could say I lost my musical virginity. I was absolutely blown away, completely in AWE. I had never listened to anything like that before. I got utterly and completely hooked and still is .

 

[babyman]

i was grown up with u2, i listen to them since 1987, when i was just 8 years old! my older brother used to listen to them while he was a teen ager at that time, and so everyday streets, with or without you, bullet, still haven't, one tree hill, run through my brain! so i just loved them since i was baby boy, u2 are really part of my life, many good aspects of my life are in relationship with them, i'm glad to be a friend of U2

 

[thrillme]

I was at work and I heard Gloria on the radio. I thought who is that singer with the incredible voice? That is one of the more joyous, liberating songs I have heard in a while.
It was the vocals that first caught my ear, but it wasn't long before I was totally impressed with the drumming and then the guitars and then the bass.


everyone forgets the bassman

U2

Yeah, that's fairly true, not just with U2. There's a few bands that are an exception, the Beatles, the Police, KISS, but usually the lead singer and guitarist get most of the attention of fans.

Pearl Jam, (people think Eddie Vedder), Rolling Stones, (Mick and Jagger), U2, (Bono and Edge), Coldplay, (Chris Martin).

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Hmm hard to say, I've heard lots of U2 songs, but didn't really know they were U2 songs, growing up, but I really liked Hold me, thrill me, kiss me, kill me, when I first heard it. Didn't really find out more about U2, that happened a few years later.