TJT
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  1. So I'm one of the older people in this fantastic group. My first ever concert by any band was U2 in Cork on Edge's birthday 8/8/87. If you were at a show in 1987 share your day with us.
  2. So I was 15 years old. My best friend at the time got a better offer the night before – a free trip to England. It was meant to be me and my two first cousins and our friends. Their friends turned up but mine fucked off to visit his aunt in England. I felt a bit awkward with their friends who I didn’t know so I headed off into the metropolis of Cork City on my own. Everywhere I went there were U2 scarves, hats, flags, planes flying overhead with banners saying things like “U2 can shop at Quiinsworth”. I didn’t touch alcohol until I was 20 so I was quite naive at the time. Anyway I made my way out to Páirc Uí Chaoimh. On the way out some drunk girl hit the ground head first. To this day I’ll never forget the sound her head made when it connected with the concrete and thinking about how long she probably waited for this day and now she was going to miss the whole thing. I don’t remember anything at all about The Subteraneans. Next up was UB40. All i remember about them was a group of fans from Mexico who produced a bag of glass bottles and proceeded to throw them at the stage for the whole set. It was hot, very hot and we were all happy with the “water” that rained down upon us from time to time. I read in “The Cork Examiner” the next day that it was actually bottles of piss that we were getting so much relief from !! The set opened with Stand by me, C’mon every body, I will follow. The show was great. Not being familiar with the back catalogue at the time when the people who knew better started chanting “How long to sing this song” I started chanting “How long, how long must we sing this song” because I thought I knew it all !! The next time I would see U2 was 31.12.89 when I was a proper fan with a decent bootleg collection under my belt but the last show of The Joshua Tree European tour will always and forever have a special place in my heart. What’s your story ?
  3. Back in the "old days" , I remember getting on line in Manhattan..doing the "all nighter" at Tower Records in Greenwich Village with all my crazy college friends. Today you kids have it so easy lol You wake up , get coffee and go online , as Im doing now waiting for Paul McCartney (BROOKLYN!) tickets to on sale today.

    I believe the winter of '87 tickets went on sale, for the epic run of 5 shows in New Jersey back in May 1987. I was 20 , and we listened to the first 4 LPs all night..I don't think JT was yet released , but I could be wrong. I just remember it being so cold outside (I might be mixing this wait with the UF spring 1985 tour, when we also waited all night back in early '85).... Being so young, the cold didn't bother me one bit. We drank Guinness and I must have played Wide Awake In America a thousand times that night into the early morning...I remember looking down Broadway and seeing the sun come up and switching from Guinness to coffee and being so fired up that we were getting close to buying tickets...ah to be 20 again....

    We had a pretty decent spot on the line , I recall 3 shows were initially announced and I had enough for 6 tickets...low and behold I got pretty good seats for those shows . As I was at the counter , they announced 2 more shows ( maybe it was 2 initially and they added 3 ? that sounds like a lot though) ...my beautiful gf (who yrs later became my wife , still married 24 yrs on) had cash on her , so we snagged 4 more tickets and I had the whole NJ run!!

    My buddy snagged tickets as well and we compared our seats.I remember he had great seats for Hartford CT as well...I asked him "woa , who are you going to Hartford with ?" "why you of course Eddie".... lol..good times the 80's were....good times indeed .

    I wound up going to 6 JT shows that May , and adding 4 more in the fall , bringing the grand total to 10 JT shows that year.

    Treasure, the 08.08.87 show was my 21st birthday...I remember later on that summer I bought the bootleg for that show in Manhattan.It was called something like Edges Birthday Party in Cork ???? ..like I said..good times .
  4. Originally posted by EDDMB:Back in the "old days" , I remember getting on line in Manhattan..doing the "all nighter" at Tower Records in Greenwich Village with all my crazy college friends. Today you kids have it so easy lol You wake up , get coffee and go online , as Im doing now waiting for Paul McCartney (BROOKLYN!) tickets to on sale today.

    I believe the winter of '87 tickets went on sale, for the epic run of 5 shows in New Jersey back in May 1987. I was 20 , and we listened to the first 4 LPs all night..I don't think JT was yet released , but I could be wrong. I just remember it being so cold outside (I might be mixing this wait with the UF spring 1985 tour, when we also waited all night back in early '85).... Being so young, the cold didn't bother me one bit. We drank Guinness and I must have played Wide Awake In America a thousand times that night into the early morning...I remember looking down Broadway and seeing the sun come up and switching from Guinness to coffee and being so fired up that we were getting close to buying tickets...ah to be 20 again....

    We had a pretty decent spot on the line , I recall 3 shows were initially announced and I had enough for 6 tickets...low and behold I got pretty good seats for those shows . As I was at the counter , they announced 2 more shows ( maybe it was 2 initially and they added 3 ? that sounds like a lot though) ...my beautiful gf (who yrs later became my wife , still married 24 yrs on) had cash on her , so we snagged 4 more tickets and I had the whole NJ run!!

    My buddy snagged tickets as well and we compared our seats.I remember he had great seats for Hartford CT as well...I asked him "woa , who are you going to Hartford with ?" "why you of course Eddie".... lol..good times the 80's were....good times indeed .

    I wound up going to 6 JT shows that May , and adding 4 more in the fall , bringing the grand total to 10 JT shows that year.

    Treasure, the 08.08.87 show was my 21st birthday...I remember later on that summer I bought the bootleg for that show in Manhattan.It was called something like Edges Birthday Party in Cork ???? ..like I said..good times .
    Damn this is fantastic, as if you got to see so many JT shows! How did they compare to the rest of the shows you've seen the band put on? The JT shows to me are like the apex of their 80's "era", you know? So I've always imagined they would've been quite a show to see. Almost like U2 while they were still pretty guerrilla, before they became a bit more familiar to the U2 we have now.
  5. Cool stories I have small anniversary,my first show was in 1997 (in my 20 years), it was first and sadly last show in my hometown (Prague)... so this year it will be 20 year since my first show and also 40th birthday (this week)... But don't hyve any special story about this... just that there were floods in our country in the 1997's summer and U2 gave about few thousands of free tickets to people who lost homes because of the floods. And during the concert Bono mentioned that. Could be heard on bootleg (Last Night On Earth)...
    So as anniversary I'm going to see show in Dublin That's all folks
  6. I’ll give an abbreviated version of my Anniversary Story. The Joshua Tree album was released during a very difficult time in my life. Nearly a year before, my father died of cancer. I was sophomore in high school and his passing was the worst day of my life. I did not have the tools or skills to handle it and I crashed. When the death of a parent happens to you at a young age, it never really leaves you. The climb out of that pit was much longer than I expected (at the time) and I didn’t do it well.

    When TJT came out and especially Where The Streets Have No Name, something about that song really struck a chord with me. It is still one of top three favorite U2 songs of all time.

    By the time I went to the concert at Oakland Stadium on November 15, 1987, I had only been listening to rock music since March. I had only been to two concerts before: Cyndi Lauper (True Colors Tour ’86) and Go West (at my high school). My girlfriend was a huge fan of Cyndi Lauper and I bought her tickets for her birthday. Go West performed at my high school because we won a contest sponsored by a local radio station.

    The Joshua Tree Tour was the first concert that I went to, that I really wanted to attend. To put it succinctly, it was a baptism. I came out of it a fan and more important, I was truly happy that night. I’ve seen a few shows since then—and loved them all—but I’ll always cherish the first one the most. I could fill volumes about my first show, but it wouldn’t be suitable for this forum.

    However, I wrote a three-part piece about it on my fan blog. It is entitled, When I Became A Fan.

    https://achtungninja.wordpress.com/2016/06/09/when-i-became-a-fan-pt-i/

    For me, it is as interesting to learn when someone became a fan as to why. I’d love to hear your thoughts and U2 stories if you are interested.

    Thanks for the question, Treasure.
  7. Originally posted by EDDMB:Back in the "old days" , I remember getting on line in Manhattan..doing the "all nighter" at Tower Records in Greenwich Village with all my crazy college friends. Today you kids have it so easy lol You wake up , get coffee and go online , as Im doing now waiting for Paul McCartney (BROOKLYN!) tickets to on sale today.

    I believe the winter of '87 tickets went on sale, for the epic run of 5 shows in New Jersey back in May 1987. I was 20 , and we listened to the first 4 LPs all night..I don't think JT was yet released , but I could be wrong. I just remember it being so cold outside (I might be mixing this wait with the UF spring 1985 tour, when we also waited all night back in early '85).... Being so young, the cold didn't bother me one bit. We drank Guinness and I must have played Wide Awake In America a thousand times that night into the early morning...I remember looking down Broadway and seeing the sun come up and switching from Guinness to coffee and being so fired up that we were getting close to buying tickets...ah to be 20 again....

    We had a pretty decent spot on the line , I recall 3 shows were initially announced and I had enough for 6 tickets...low and behold I got pretty good seats for those shows . As I was at the counter , they announced 2 more shows ( maybe it was 2 initially and they added 3 ? that sounds like a lot though) ...my beautiful gf (who yrs later became my wife , still married 24 yrs on) had cash on her , so we snagged 4 more tickets and I had the whole NJ run!!

    My buddy snagged tickets as well and we compared our seats.I remember he had great seats for Hartford CT as well...I asked him "woa , who are you going to Hartford with ?" "why you of course Eddie".... lol..good times the 80's were....good times indeed .

    I wound up going to 6 JT shows that May , and adding 4 more in the fall , bringing the grand total to 10 JT shows that year.

    Treasure, the 08.08.87 show was my 21st birthday...I remember later on that summer I bought the bootleg for that show in Manhattan.It was called something like Edges Birthday Party in Cork ???? ..like I said..good times .
    HAHA! The good old days! I did the same thing. This is when they broke out of arenas to stadium level and it was apparent walking through the line who was a hardcore U2 fan and who these new interlopers we now had to compete for what had once been our birthright to stellar tickets. Spent the line for the Miami show, but this is where I learned that if you went to ye olde ticket outlet (this was before ticketmaster... I wanna say it was B.A.S.S. tickets in Florida... but it was much easier buying an out of town show. We got our Miami tickets at the Lockhart stadium box office (a lesser know location to purchase tickets, up to this point anyway) and then sped of to Peaches records downtown to try our luck for Tampa and we'd already acquired for the 2-night arena stint in Atlanta.

    This was around the same time I entered a contest in Wild Pair chain at our local mall to see U2 in France. After my friend and I had filled out an entire pad of entries, the manager informed us it was one entry each and duplicates would be disqualified. So... I entered my, my father and my brother, left and all but forgot about it. A few weeks later my mother calls me at work and asks me if I had entered her for a trip. She won! As the trip was non-transferrable, I spent a week in Nice with dear ol' ma, and saw U2 with UB40 and The Pretenders as openers in Montpelier that summer and then 4 more times in December to close out the year...

    And PS... That "Cork Connection" bootleg is one of my favorite live shows!
  8. Keep these stories coming, lads! Excellent read
  9. Great to see so many replies. Thanks folks and keep them coming. What's your story ?
  10. Here is what I recall (and yes indeed, the ticket-thing is still vividly in my mind!)

    Rotterdam, 1987, the 10th of June.

    I was sixteen and I finally had my parents consent to go to a “rock-show,” together with a group of friends from school. There were only a limited number of selling points for concert tickets. In Amsterdam it was the "Nieuwe Muziekhandel" in the Leidsestraat. And it was me that joined the queue one early Saturday morning to buy us all tickets. One of the most nerve-wrecking mornings of my life actually. Not only because at 6 am the queue was already very long but also because I had more money in my pocket than I ever had seen before – plastic money just wasn’t an option (not sure if the ticket shop even had it as an option).

    Anyway, the plan was that I would buy tickets for everyone (6, 7 or 8, I can’t remember). GA, of course. Field-tickets, we used to call them, as the Rotterdam Kuip is a football (soccer) stadium. But by the time I had reached the counter to buy the tickets, these field-tickets had already gone for both nights (U2 was about to play the 10th and 11th of June). What was left were seats on the second ring of the Kuip stadium. So I bought these seats for the first night, but I felt that I have let my friends down who had trusted me their money for the highly anticipated field-tix. I blamed myself for not getting more early in the queue…

    Those days were, of course, without internet or cell phone. So only when I got back home I learned that the news had announced the fasted sell-out of concert tickets ever – it was U2 coming to Holland and everybody wanted to be there!
    My friends were anxiously waiting for my return, slightly anticipating me coming back empty handed (o yee of little faith!). So when I showed them the orange U2 tickets, they were overly excited and celebrated me as a hero!

    From the show I remember us hanging over the railing of the second ring, singing and shouting like it was a championship match and we all came out winning. That feeling of community and friends I have felt over and over again at every U2 show I have attended until now: from Brussels to Boston, from San Diego to Dublin and many, many times back home in Amsterdam.

    Magically, a photograph of me at my first-concert-ever does exist for it had appeared in some Dutch newspaper. It was taken when fans higher up on the second ring enrolled a really large banner. I do remember this happening and you see me from the back watching the sight. I know who is me in the photograph because I am the only one wearing a black Joshua Tree t-shirt and I am standing right behind the rail of the second ring – I’ve included the picture with an orange angle pointing at my head!

  11. Originally posted by BigGiRL:Here is what I recall (and yes indeed, the ticket-thing is still vividly in my mind!)

    Rotterdam, 1987, the 10th of June.

    I was sixteen and I finally had my parents consent to go to a “rock-show,” together with a group of friends from school. There were only a limited number of selling points for concert tickets. In Amsterdam it was the "Nieuwe Muziekhandel" in the Leidsestraat. And it was me that joined the queue one early Saturday morning to buy us all tickets. One of the most nerve-wrecking mornings of my life actually. Not only because at 6 am the queue was already very long but also because I had more money in my pocket than I ever had seen before – plastic money just wasn’t an option (not sure if the ticket shop even had it as an option).

    Anyway, the plan was that I would buy tickets for everyone (6, 7 or 8, I can’t remember). GA, of course. Field-tickets, we used to call them, as the Rotterdam Kuip is a football (soccer) stadium. But by the time I had reached the counter to buy the tickets, these field-tickets had already gone for both nights (U2 was about to play the 10th and 11th of June). What was left were seats on the second ring of the Kuip stadium. So I bought these seats for the first night, but I felt that I have let my friends down who had trusted me their money for the highly anticipated field-tix. I blamed myself for not getting more early in the queue…

    Those days were, of course, without internet or cell phone. So only when I got back home I learned that the news had announced the fasted sell-out of concert tickets ever – it was U2 coming to Holland and everybody wanted to be there!
    My friends were anxiously waiting for my return, slightly anticipating me coming back empty handed (o yee of little faith!). So when I showed them the orange U2 tickets, they were overly excited and celebrated me as a hero!

    From the show I remember us hanging over the railing of the second ring, singing and shouting like it was a championship match and we all came out winning. That feeling of community and friends I have felt over and over again at every U2 show I have attended until now: from Brussels to Boston, from San Diego to Dublin and many, many times back home in Amsterdam.

    Magically, a photograph of me at my first-concert-ever does exist for it had appeared in some Dutch newspaper. It was taken when fans higher up on the second ring enrolled a really large banner. I do remember this happening and you see me from the back watching the sight. I know who is me in the photograph because I am the only one wearing a black Joshua Tree t-shirt and I am standing right behind the rail of the second ring – I’ve included the picture with an orange angle pointing at my head!

    [image]
    Great story, BigGiRL! I especially liked your hero's welcome. It's so wonderful to read about people's memories and how they are similar to mine, even though I live in the United States (San Francisco, California). I was in high school, too. I'm so glad that my first show was during The Joshua Tree Tour.

    What a cool picture. I wish I had one of myself from that tour! Thanks for sharing.
  12. The only anniversary I have this year regarding U2, is seeing U23D in the cinema. What a great film! Should have been released on Blu Ray

    Aaaand, I was in the belly of my mum when she went to see U2 in Rotterdam in 1997! She remembers that had a jump scare when the support act started