I had been a fan for 6 yrs at that point. I was 18 when JT came out. I went through the "fan club" stage from 1981-84 (when I understood the band's political lyrics and, in the first flush of discovery, felt it was like being in a secret club that no one else could understand); then, when events in my life started getting darker, through what I can only term a direct intervention by God via "Bad", discovered the spiritual/religious side of them, in January of 85. I did not howefer fall in love for LIFE until I watched Bono wrap that black girl in his arms at Live Aid, watching that on TV in JUly of 1985 when I was 15, all I can still remember was the way he cradled his head on her shoulder, how he had his eyes closed throughout the whole thing, how gentle he was--it looked more like a private midnight slow dance with Ali then a public moment with a total strnger in front of 80,000 people and a global audience. That was when I felt I TRULY understood the band and what they were about. I collapsed on the floor and wept uncontrollably. It was my U2 baptism of fire. (22 yrs later, I think I would have still reacted the same way.)
So JT for me was first and foremost a combined Intellectual and emotional experience. I felt like these guys were memebers of my family. Even though I had never seen them live and would not for another 5 yrs. I had kept vigal listening to my radio every night in Feb that yr waiting for the first playing of WOWY (on this station I listened to, it premiered on the morning of March 5, 1987--I taped it and the other day, to mark the anniversary, I listened to the cassette again--I still have all my caaettes and they work fine, except for "Side 1" of War (I puit quotes b/c War didn't have sides, the whole album was on each side)which I wore out--esp 40. Side 2 works great though.
The day it came out, I didn't have a car, and there was no bus service on this road by my college (weird, there is now). So I walked a mile down a busy road to the record store, and spent the next hour and a half idling bacl with it on my phones. Most vivid memory: almost getting killed b/c I blindly walked into a busy intersection right into oncoming traffic belting out "OH, GREAT OCEANNNN, OH, GREAT SEAAAAA...run TO the OCEANNNN. run to the SEA". (Does anybody remember the big debate on whether that song was the end of One Tree Hill or the beginning of "Exit"? ) And magic, pure magic, walking across campus and hearing it coming from 25 different windows. Weird, that my liitle band was everybody' elses' at last....
To write al this album still means to me would take ages. Though I wonder if the politcally savvy and compromising Bono of today would have still lodged a public protest in AZ. abvout the MLK non-holiday. No doubt he woukd NOT protest...just met with the governbor and politely asked him to change his mind. SOmetimes changes are not for the better....
As I tell him today, U2 has been with me longer than he has. 
