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  1. This topic is why this board is my favourite
  2. I became a U2 fan in early 2006 when i was 16. I only knew a few songs: WOWY, ISHFWILF, Desire, MW, One, Sweetest Thing (didnt know it was by u2 though), BD and Vertigo, but never went out of my was to listen to them and i knew nothing about the band. Songs like Streets, SBS, Bad, UV, Discotheque, i had never heard b4. Before becoming a U2 fan my taste in music was almost non existant, the only songs id listen too were the ones which were popular at the time. (looking back at my mix cd's from 04/05 make me cringe in disgust).

    So on New Year's day 2006 a music channel down here had a special where they were similtaneuosly playing 4 concerts continuously throughout the day. U2 live from Chicago was one of those. I recorded Vertigo only, then watched it many times over the following days. I liked Vertigo enough that i decided to look for the album at a music store (this was probably the first time i ever looked to buy an album) i remember when i eventually found where they kept the U2 albums thinking to myself "FFS how many albums do they have". I didnt buy HTDAAB though, cuz it didnt have Beautiful day on it and i wasnt gona spend my christmas money on an album which only had 1 song that i knew.

    A few days after this my mum came back from her friends house with a burnt copy of HTDAAB. For the 1st week of listening to it id finish LAPOE and then restart the CD back to Vertigo. it wasnt until i actually listened to the whole album a couple of times that i realised how great it was, but i still wouldnt have called myself a U2 fan. That came a little later.

    I'd seen that the U2 Live from Chicago DVD was for sale and mum agreed to buy it for me, but only if i agreed to go to this girl from schools B'day party (which i didnt wana go to) in return, so i went to the party and got the DVD. I only knew 11 of the songs from the DVD (the ones from HTDAAB and the others i mentioned at the start) so the 1st time i put the DVD i watched through COBL and Vertigo, both were amazing and the extended outro to Vertigo kicked arse. Then the next song started with this Wah pedal and the crowd going "Woohoo, Woohoohhooo" Bono started singing the intro, then the 1st chorus at the same time Edge continued on the Wah and the crowd was still going too. It felt like it was building towards sumthing, but i had no idea what, then after the 2nd chorus the band let rip and i had my 1st OMFG moment from the band, Elevation baby!!! A 2nd followed during SYCMIOYO and a 3rd when Edge played the solo of LAPOE. At that point i knew that this band was something else, sumthing soo much better then the songs on MTV, and that i was going to take them (and music as a whole) a lot more seriously. Skipping forward to One and MW confirmed this (lol i skipped Streets, silly boy) My first band crush was complete.

    A few days after i went to K-Mart and bought ATYCLB (it had BD on it WOOO ), also picked up Achtung Baby and the Best of 1980-1990. I found myself liking every single song, this band was amazing, but none of my friends really liked them, yet all my teachers did. U2 were about to come to Adelaide, and i was planning to sit outside and listen., but the tour got delayed when Edge's daughter fell ill.

    In the months that followed all my money went into U2, i slowly collected all their albums and DVDs, my love for them growing exponentially with each purchase. I was a one-eyed U2 fan, never listened to anything but U2, it was pretty much U2 24/7 so my family had no choice but to become U2 groupies too. One day mum came home with a 'suprise'. U2 tickets to the re-scheduled show in Adelaide. The concert was everything i wanted it to be and more, having spent the whole year discovering the band, now finally getting to see them in the flesh, amazing.

    After the concert my love for music grew, i bought a guitar, started listening to other bands like Coldplay, the Killers, Snow Patrol, etc. Music had become a massive part of my life and it was All Because of You(too) .in Late 2008 I started discovering U2 bootlegs and it was the search for the Adelaide bootleg that brought me to this site. The rest as they say is history.

    Looking back im soo glad mum bribed me into going to that party, if it wasnt for that DVD who knows if i would have become such a big fan. I could have missed out on the massively positive influence U2 has had on my life and they r still providing me with OMFG moments, bringing back EBTTRT is #1983 on my list
  3. well i like U2 sinds i was eleven ...( i am 38 now) I sneak in my sisters bedroom back in 1983 to get the cassette of Under a blood red sky and start to listen to it over and over again ...i couldn't stop listening to it ...My uncle taped Boy war and october and the unforgettabble fire for my sister but i was the one who listen it for about thousand times ....When the Joshua tree comes out my sister get the album for here birthday ...and again i was the one who played the album grey .....
    i start to collect posters and photo's from U2 and got Rattle and hum for my birthday bought the single of desire ....and this was the start of my collection taped the new years concert back in 89/90 ..when i got my first job i bought boy until Rattle and hum in one day on Cd also bought all the videos .when i moved from Rotterdam to Zeist in holland ..i discoverd a store in Utrecht called White noise ..there i bought my first Bootleg ever from the concert in Rotterdam 1990/01/10 ..
    and this was the start of collecting bootlegs i discoverd there was twice a year a Record -Cd Fair in the jaarbeurs in Utrecht when i start to collect al the singles of U2 on Cd ...And there it was Achtung baby... iwa walking with some friends and in a local musicstore the buy tickets for the concert of U2 in Dortmund Germany ....in a blink of an eye i was in the store and bought my Ever first U2 concert ticket and i was in seventh heaven .... it was a ticket including a bus trip to Dortmund ...so we ( me and my friends ) went to dortmund on 1992/06/04 and it was ...well you all will remember your first U2 concert ( i hope) two days later it was my birthday and i got the achtung baby poster set for my 20th birthday ....from my best friend ..who got it from a friend of him who worked in a musicstore ....i got tickets also for Rotterdam 1993/05/10 / collonge 1993 /06/12 and nijmegen 1993/08/03 i started to collect all the T-shirts from the ZooTv and Zooropa tour
    got my Fly shade my ZooTV my My tour books and much more ..iwas adicted to ZooTv and Zooropa got my self a Zoomerang from the Zootv ausie tour ...collect a bunch of Zootv bootlegs got member of the Dutch U2 fanclub and the Zooropa Fanclub and visit fanclubdays
    all around The country...and start to collect books . ...than it went to 1997 when POP was born ...was at the POP world wide release party in rotterdam and was one of first 2000 who got the album ...Bought tickets for 18 and 19 July for the concert in Rotterdam to see the European premiere of the POPMART tour ... Got my self in two days all the concert T- shirts and the tourbook ...first night on the tribune and second night front row next to the catwalk straight before the lemon ...Whooohooo !!! My arm was just to short to reach Bono ...my wife touched him GRRRRR !!!....then was Popmart sarajevo live on the radio and taped it again ...
    This was my new mission to collect bootlegs with radio and soundboard recordings ...
    got my self a VHS recording of the broadcasted show live from Mexico ...during a fanclubday waiting before the real release of the VHS ...Then in 2001 Elevation tour starts to hit the road ...in this time i was doing it all slower because my first daughter was 2 years old and my wife was pregnant from our twins and was allot sick in that time ...but still going to records/cd fairs to buy boots ..and start a lot of reading i was adicted to pimm jal the la para's U2 A concert documentairy ...and Into the heart ...went to the concert in Arnhem on 2001/08/31 and yes the roof went of ...i was in the outside ring front row next to the entrence of the heart and got a very close view again ...i took my sister with me for here first ever U2 concert and some friends of my work ..who prefer to stay in the back of the concert hall.. Another friend of me got with us just before we go to the concert and she didn't pay me the money for the tickets so i said don't pay me in money but buy me some T-shirts ...
    so i got home with 4 t-shirts ....i did it all slower until 2005 Vertigo !!!! I got 4 tickets for the show but two people cancelled to go with me ..one ticket i sale and the other one i trade for another concert date in Amsterdam so i went to the 13e and 16e of july 2005 and got two of the best nights of my life ...the 13e i went totaly nuts ... it was like i know i go crazy ....
    and the 16e was the best U2 concert since Ever !!! a show with a lot of surprices ...
    Who's gonna ride your wild horses/ Miss sarajevo first time ever during a U2 concert / orignale of the species full bandversion/40 never will forget this fantastic night...
    i bought my son his first U2 t-shirt ...and then in 2006 i discoverd a Website who changed my life for ever ...U2START !!!! i was in seven heaven i could take all the boots i want from the internet and never went to a records/cd fair since than i went to the forum and get lots of online friends .. started to download concerts and burn them on Cd ..used Pimm Jals book to read about shows and then download the shows who looks interesting to listen to ...
    and start to collect books again ...just like U2 and I from Anton Corbijn and more ...
    2009 Amsterdam 20e of july in the pit Under the claw i couldn't believe it i was around 16.15 in Amsterdam got in on 17.10 and yes i was inside just tree meters from the stage ..a lot of people next to me where there in the early morning or the night before and i was also there ..
    When we got in the Amsterdam Arena we went to the stage and i wanted to stay beside the claw but a view people where saving there places of there life depend on it so we went to the gates for the claw and i asked the guy if we still could get in and he said YES ...we ( Me, my sister and friend Stephan) went in and the gate got closed ....i was screaming my longs out of joy !!! i never expected it ....so this went also to one of my favorite gigs !!!
    a year later i went with Stephan to the Amazing city of Paris to see the guy's in The Stade de France for also one of my favorite concerts ever !!! what a night ....what a crowd ...who said that French people are arrogant ...who told you that French people never want to talk in English ...i had the best night of my life over there !!! never seen the band in such a good shape from the first note until the end of the show U2 blow me away !!! i was standing to the left leg of the claw just 5 meters from the catwalk on the outside ring got a big view wonderfull sound (never in my life it was so clear ...) what can i say THIS IS WHY I LIKE U2
  4. to add to my earlier post, i got my first bootleg, the u.f croke gig on cassete tape and played it to death, i then started collecting vinyl from the record fairs. i remember buying a mint u2-3 and a yellow vinyl another day eire version for£50, i only earnt £20 a week from my part time job way back in 1985. i kinda lost my u2way a little with having young kids and not liking the pop album at all, totally missed elevation tour and obviously popmart. saw 1 vertigo show, got right back into them again and have spent more than i should on the 360 tour.

    i took 2 of my kids to wembley1, sheffield and to paris last year. i consider 2 new fans from my kids is good work and my partner is a big muse fan but loved the paris show on par with muse.
  5. Hey Emiel, too bad White Noise doesn't exist anymore. Luckily Plato still does. Do you live in Utrecht?? (I do)
  6. This is a great thread. I love reading all of these.

    Here's my timeline:

    1. Heard Beautiful Day on the radio in my sophomore year of high school, when I was about 15/16, in 2000.
    2. Asked my mother who played it and if she had any more CDs of whoever that band was.
    3. She gave me her cassette tapes of Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum.
    4. I listened to Exit and reocgnized that same beautiful "ringing" sound in the guitar that had caught my ears in Beautiful Day. She told me it was just one person (plus effects). I began to think of that person as God himself (I would of course turn out to be right).
    5. Listening to R&H, I recognized Pride, Still Haven't Found, and Streets from the radio. I read the lyrics closer and started to feel more of a connection to Bono & wanted to know more about him and his causes.
    6. Over the summer - bought my first two U2 albums (CDs) - The Best of 1980-1990 and Achtung Baby. I stood in the CD section at Walmart and looked through the song lists on each CD. I recognized the most songs on Best Of, and I recognized Mysterious Ways and One on AB, so those were the two I wanted to spend my money on.
    7. Went home and listened to Best Of. Liked the majority of the "radio" songs - was my first time hearing I Will Follow and TUF. Didn't like either of them; I dismissed them as "too 80s," especially TUF with its "weird synths."
    8. Over the summer, I listened to AB several times. Didn't like it, didn't hate it. UTEOTW especially creeped me out. The only song I began to warm up to was Acrobat, which over time became my window into the rest of the album.
    9. Bought Boy, October, and War. Checked the release date for Best of 1990-2000 when it came out in late 2002, went to the same Walmart to buy it + B-sides disc the day it was released. Became my first introduction to Zooropa and Pop songs, plus my first U2 remixes heard on the B-side disc.
    10. Got Zooropa for Xmas 2002. Hated it. Put it away, didn't listen to it for about four years.
    11. Summer 2003 - bought Pop and TUF albums in Canada while on vacation, completing my album collection then. Loved Pop immediately, from the very first bars of Discotheque. Didn't leave my Discman for the remainder of the trip.
    12. I forget which Xmas it was, but it was around this time that I got the Slane DVD for Xmas. This was what sealed the deal for me; watching it was my "Oh, shit, I really am a U2 fan--I really really love this band" moment. It didn't leave my DVD player for about a month.
    13. Nov. 2004 - VH1 streams tracks from Bomb on their website a week before the album's release. I rush home from college classes every day to listen to them, Love and Peace and Vertigo especially. Bought the super deluxe edition early morning on release day.
    14. May 2005 - I try desparately to win tickets to U2's Vertigo Tour shows in Boston from the radio. I fail. I sulk.
    15. Fall 2005 - Gone abroad for a college semester. My friend informs me we're going to see U2 in Hartford a few days after I return. Vertigo Hartford becomes my first U2 concert. It was freezing, we were in the rafters, and it was the greatest night I could imagine.
    16. May 2007 - Graduate college, work a meaningless desk job for the summer til I begin grad school--discover U2start.com one day at work on a Google search while bored. Am introduced to the world of bootlegs and live U2 aside from the one concert I went to. Also my introduction to online U2 community. Both of these increased 200% up through and including now, and will only continue.
    17. 2009 - Follow the Interference leak threads for NLOTH religiously, was "there" the moment it leaked, got it, listened to it. Drove an hour to Somerville to their mini-show in March 2009 even though I didnt have tickets; waited two hours to see the band in the back, saw them up close and personal. Bought the album when released. Saw U2 360 Foxboro 1&2; waited in line from 9am each day. Got Edge side inside the circle night 1, and same position right against the outer rail on night 2. Amazing.

    Added up, I really can't explain why I love the band. I do know that while I'll get burnout from time to time, and equally throw myself right back into them obssessively, I don't think my core love for their music will ever stop or disappear.
  7. One more reason to throw in here:

    I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For.

    There are 100s more. But right now, that reason there sums it all up for me. One of the most poignant and beautiful songs ever written.
  8. Originally posted by WojBhoy:One more reason to throw in here:

    I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For.

    There are 100s more. But right now, that reason there sums it all up for me. One of the most poignant and beautiful songs ever written.




  9. i life in Zeist just around the corner of Utrecht!!!
  10. Cool stuff around here!

    I can type a whole story, but it's too much.
    The main reason how I got to U2 is, because of my dad.. he is fan since October and I grew up listening to U2.
    I really started to listen to U2 when I heard Beautiful and the others from ATYCLB, I was about 9 or 10 years old.
    That was really the moment they grabbed me and took me in their trip! Not as much as now though, but that came slowly.
  11. U2 is an identity. You feel like a part of it. That's why I like. I learned to play guitar and to write songs. Thats because of U2. ALL BECAUSE OF U!!!!
  12. I think the exact reasons for liking U2 are a bit hazy for me. First off, my Dad has been a fan since around War/The Unforgettable Fire so at some point I was bound to run into U2. I was born in a decade when music was all about manufactured pop and lacked a lot of the character the he 80's had. So it was around the release of 'Pop' that I started to hear U2, I didn't know it was U2 but I remember having Discotheque in my head at school and I liked the music because it was different to what the others at school were listening to and the fact that the music was actually good, not tedious, disposable pop.

    Of course, knowing U2's discography, ATYCLB followed Pop, but it was a huge 3 year gap (huge between 6-9 years old anyway). It was probably around the house that I started to like another band though, listening to CD's or watching music TV I often heard these songs called Pride, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For and One from a band called U2. These songs I really liked.

    Then Beautiful Day was released, I was 9 at the time and it was a song that instantly grabbed everyone. It was popular at school, I loved it, radio loved it. This was when it all started to kick in and fit together, Beutiful Day was by U2, the same band that sang One, Pride etc and little to my knowledge, the same band that did Discotheque. Elevation and Stuck In A Moment followed and they were equally as popular. I still wasn't a massive U2 fan though, had no urges to see them in concert or buy anything other than a CD.

    Again another huge period passed, HTDAAB was released when I was 13 and Vertigo was a song that instantly hit the radiowaves and became popular at school. Between the time that ATYCLB and HTDAAB were released I had slowed down with the U2 and wasn't really listening to much music at all but it was my brother who bought HTDAAB, well he had it for his birthday I think. A few listens and the U2 train had set off once again.

    Now though I wasn't too worried about another potential 3 or 4 year wait for new stuff because the computer had their back catalogue on the computer waiting to be listened to whenever I desired and I listened often, discovering new tracks all the time, little golden nuggets of U2's past. Staring At The Sun, Electrical Storm, Numb, Seconds, Into The Heart, New Year's Day - all songs that I had yet to discover and it was then that I realised how massive this band really were.

    It was around 2007/08 that I noticed a few U2 DVD's on the shelf, Slane, Chicago etc. And it was viewing them that made me join this website, to discover yet another treasure chest of U2.

    I'm glad that I did find U2 and I'm happy to say that I've seen them twice and would pay to go and see them again at the drop of a hat.
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Make sure to not miss out on any U2 news and updates: follow us on Twitter, Instagram and like us on Facebook.
Make sure to not miss out on any U2 news and updates: follow us on Twitter, Instagram and like us on Facebook.
Make sure to not miss out on any U2 news and updates: follow us on Twitter, Instagram and like us on Facebook.