You first impression when you heard U2

[isabelle_guns]

What was your first impression when you heard U2 for the first time? Be honest now

 

[starsgoblue]

I was too young at the time when I first heard it (my mother was a fan)....I just grew up around U2 and eventually embraced it as MY band. I can't remember when the first time was.

 

[david]

My first exposure to U2 that I know of was when I was 11 and heard songs off Rattle and Hum. I thought U2 had a very powerful anthemic type sound and I was moved at a young age.

 

[U2democrat]

I was too young at the time when I first heard it (my mother was a fan)....I just grew up around U2 and eventually embraced it as MY band. I can't remember when the first time was.

same, being born in 1986 all i know is that my sister played JT ALL the time and when i heard it years later several of the songs sounded awfully familiar.

 

[Axver]

I grew up on U2 ... I can't remember a time when I did not know of them. They are a necessary part of the world's continued existence in my mind. The thought of somewhere without JT is just too weird.

 

[ZigZag]

I believe I found it to be, "a really classy type of music".

 

[luvsU2]

speechless! How could I have not really listened to them before 2001?

 

[namkcuR]

My first impression of them was that my life would never be the same.

 

[Roland of Gilead]

My first impression of U2 was in a hotel room late at night watching Friday Night Videos and Pride came on.

I was floored!

I didn't sleep well at all that night. I couldn't stop singing it in my head. My brother purchased the cassette that week and it was all over for me ever since (been a brainwashed u2 fan since).

 

[U2Kitten]

"I like that band! I'm going to go buy their album!"

me in 1983 when I first heard War

 

[cass]

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

 

[ylimeU2]

Umm, I was a little too young to remember, but I'm must have thought it was really something, because I ruined my 11 year old brother's copy of the Joshua Tree trying to play it (I was 6 at the time).

And then later, I heard Who's Going to Ride Your Wild Horses on the radio (this was right before Zooropa came out). I remember thinking that these guys knew what real emotion was and what real life was about, as opposed to a lot of the happy-go-lucky pop stuff. I made my dad go out and buy me AB that very night. I still feel that way about them.

 

[Bono's shades]

When I heard With or Without You on the radio for the first time in the spring of 1987 I got chills down my spine. It wasn't like any song I had ever heard before, especially the guitar work and the singer's voice.

 

[Kariann]

I liked them immediately and odd at is sounds I knew that somehow their music would stay with me for quite awhile.

 

[starsgoblue]

I think it's really neat how some of us just have always been around U2...it's like it's our inheritance or something, if that makes any sense. Makes it feel really special doesn't it!

 

[GibsonGirl]

To be extremely honest, I was rather unfair on them when I first heard them. My friends thought they were "old", and being young and stupid, I agreed. But in the end, I couldn't deny it. As much as I tried to hate them, I couldn't get their farkin' songs out of my head!

 

[nurse chrissi]

I feel that u2 has always been lurking somewhere in my cultural identity - either watching MTV for the first time with The New Years Day video (come on guys that video rocked!!) seeing my cousin's poster of JT in his dorm room and rewatching WTSHNN and WOWY video's, AB and Zooropa during high school to pop during college and ATYCLB during my first year out of school - they have been, corny as it sounds, a soundtrack to my life
When you figure an entire generation has grown up with this band - that is just amazingly cool - a whole generation brainwashed on the ideas of u2 - it could be waaaaay worse

 

[eruditz]

"Wow, they make music like that?!"

Beautiful Day came on the radio one day and I payed attention to the lyrics. I remember thinking to myself, "Hey, this is DEEP!"

In my defense, I was twelve and Britney Spears was pretty much all they ever played on the radio. I was so young and naive!

 

[Needle_Chill]

same, being born in 1986 all i know is that my sister played JT ALL the time and when i heard it years later several of the songs sounded awfully familiar.

Hey, that's the exact same with me, except I was born in January of 1987. It's amazing to meet someone like you who started where I did. My Dad played JT to me over and over, and it got to the point that during "Streets" I'd grab hold of a table leg, stand up, and bounce up and down to the beat...

And then years later, at like the age of ten, I heard the song and I was like "Wow, this is the best song I've ever heard! It sounds sooo familiar!"

Right on man!

 

[u2granny]

I hadn't heard of them since I was busy with three toddling boys. My boyfriend (now husband) took me to a concert for "some Irish band". That was 1983. I bought War the next day!

 

[Needle_Chill]

I think it's really neat how some of us just have always been around U2...it's like it's our inheritance or something, if that makes any sense. Makes it feel really special doesn't it!

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

 

[innocent_eyes]

My older cousin brought me to his room during a family x-mas gathering, I was about 11?? or however old you are in grade 4. (in 1994)

I had no interest in music and never thought i would...i didn't like anything on the radio and i didn't know what i liked, i only knew the songs i di NOT like.

He played Joshua tree for me, some songs anyway, and WOWY really struck me, like nothing i'd heard before. I was blown away.

after a while had passed i never really heard or thought of them till a different aunt got a copy of JT free from some cd selling thing, i think Columbia House? (1995ish)

Anyay she gave it to me or maybe i asked for it since the name was familiar. I remembered some songs and loved all on the cd, but me, my younger bro, and my sister played WOWY so many times, just on repeat all night till we fell asleep. I'm suprised the cd still works. My favorite song still and I've heard ALOT more than ANY other u2 song by far.

eventually I collected the cd's over time.

I then heard BD on radio and was like WOW, thats amazing, New u2 song!!! Also my fav. song.

Then my cousin takes me to my brother's and my own forst concert....U2, Elevation Tour, in the heart. WOW!!! I was on sensory overload, completely breathless, b/c by this time I was a big U2 fan, but after that night I was a HUGE u2 fan-atic.

sorry for the length, but i had to share!!! ;-)

 

[mofo82]

here in chicago, when the Bulls were winning all those titles in the 90's, DESIRE was played at games alot and I unknowingly heard U2 for the first time. they also played the beginning of STREETS at the tip off- absolutely cool and spine tingling during the finals. "Hold Me, Thrill Me. Kiss Me. Kill Me" was the first song of theirs I really listened to and it changed my whole idea of music...my first favorite rock tune

 

[beli]

I first heard/saw U2 on Countdown (Cass will know what Im talking about) when they played the Gloria film clip.

I loved it immediately. I liked it because it was fast

 

[Popmartijn]

I think I first heard U2 in 1984 or so (with Pride). Didn't think much of it then. To me, their video was very similar to Prince's Purple Rain, which I did like. Hey! I was 8, so many videos still did look the same.

A couple of years later (1987 to be exact), With Or Without You was a huge hit all over the world. I didn't like that song either and was in a way glad it did not reach #1. I can't remember now who was #1 at that time.

Around 1990 I had a CD player and one of my neighbours lend me his copy of The Joshua Tree. Some songs did stick with me, others didn't (can't remember anymore which ones did and which didn't), but I was not even enticed to tape the songs I liked.

Then it was the end of 1991 (around September). I had just completed my Dire Straits collection (with On Every Street, released in that month), when I wanted to discover some new music. Yes, even then I was addicted to buying CD's . Anyway, I saw the U2 section and remembered I did like some of their songs. So I bought Rattle And Hum (as it was their longest album with the most songs on them, back when I still cared about that stuff) and was hooked. A few weeks later The Fly was released and Achtung Baby again a few weeks after that. Before the end of 1992 I had all their albums.

Now look what they've done to me...

C ya!

Marty

 

[iacrobat]

I had always liked Desire and Streets, but besides that I thought...*gasp*...all their songs sounded the same

Then Zooropa happened.
Daddy's Gonna Pay.. and Lemon hooked me.

 

[di_g]

its weird (and kinda sad) i dont remember a ditsinct moment when i went "wow, thats amazing" something i do quite often now even when i hear some of my favourites for the millionth time!
all i remember was being 14, my sister coming back from overseas end of 1996 and telling me she had bought some U2 album (it was achtung baby i think) and me not really caring at all.
6 months later i was selling my posessions to get U2 tickets and begging my boyfriend to buy me joshua tree which i then played on repeat at full volume for months. its all gone on from there
sadly, i have no idea what happened in between to get me to that point but whatever it was, i'm eternally grateful!

 

[U2girl]

Literally? I think it was

"Wow! Who IS that?"

 

[Pearl]

I was 10 when Achtung Baby came out. I didn't think much of them at the time. They were just another band to me. I kind of thought they were just like Depeche Mode and Duran Duran (don't ask). Although they did sound different from everyone else with their music and Bono's voice. But I didn't become an instant fan.
I guess me becoming a U2 was a matter of time and at the right moment, when BD came out.

 

[AtomicLemon]

It was over 20 years ago at the US Festival. When they stepped out on stage and started jamming I was like this: then

I literally got tears in my eyes and said to my friend, "This is going to be my favorite band for the rest of my life"

edited for typos