Chronology of My Life As A U2 Fan
September, 1983. I’m 14. I buy U2’s third album, War, after hearing some guys on my cross-country team talk about it. At first, I can’t tell if they are raving about an album called War, or an album by the group named War. Turned out it was the former.
February, 1984. I walk the halls of forensics tournaments listening to nothing but War.
March, 1984. I purchase the Live at Red Rocks live album and video. I also purchase a t-shirt with the cover of the Red Rocks album on it.
April, 1984. I walk the halls of my high school wearing nothing but my U2 shirt. And pants, of course. Parachute pants. But always with the U2 shirt.
Spring, 1984. The Unforgettable Fire comes out, the first album I ever anticipated or read about before release. I’m disappointed with the retreat from guitar-based songs, and the murky production makes it sound like it was recorded in a dank European castle. Oh, wait. It was! None of this deters me from listening to it every single day.
Winter, 1984. Still wearing that U2 shirt every day. Plus, now I have a cool U2 button on my letterjacket. Yeah, I had a letterjacket. Is that a problem? At least I had track and cross-country letters on it, not just the debate and athletics manager letters my debate partner had. Not that I give a damn what you think anyway. I’ve got a U2 button on my jacket, a U2 shirt underneath it, and a driver’s license coming in April. Then it’ll be all U2, all the time while I cruise Topeka.
Early 1985. U2 is on the cover of Rolling Stone. They are proclaimed the Band of the Decade, or something similarly monumental and genuflecting. I feel an inexplicable sense of personal triumph and validation. In your face, Journey!
Summer, 1985. I see U2 on MTV, footage of some Live Aid-like event in Giants Stadium. Bono sings “Sunday Bloody Sunday” a capella. Bono seems so serious. Bono likes to help people and sing serious songs. And Bono always seems to know where the camera is. U2 are megastars.
July, 1985. I attend debate camp at Baylor University in Waco, TX. It is un-fucking-believably hot. I meet a girl who will pretend not to know me at the National High School Debate Championships in Tulsa the following June. But in Waco 1985, she loves U2 and heavy petting, as do I. While at the camp I hear, for the first time, bands like Violent Femmes, Depeche Mode, Psychedelic Furs, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys. I resist the temptation to believe that all the other kids at the camp are cooler than I am because they know about these bands and don’t buy their clothes at Chess King. I can do this because I know about U2, and I’ve Been A Fan From Way Back. I wear my now faded U2 shirt to my debate squad meeting, and one of the so-called cool kids asks me if I like the U2 EP Wide Awake in America, which has been out for at least three months now. I have no idea what he’s talking about and lose face in front of my squad members. But they’re all a bunch of Ralph Lauren Polo dorks anyway, so who cares, right?
Winter, 1985. I buy a new version of the U2 at Red Rocks shirt. Exact replica.
1986. No U2-related events of significance happen in 1986. But Simple Minds sort of sounds like U2, if you try hard enough.
St. Patrick’s Day, 1987. I hear “With Or Without You” for the first time while I’m sitting in my car, a deep green 1974 Duster, waiting for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade to get the fuck out of my way on a cold rainy day. I’m on my way home from Student Congress at the State Capital, and I’ve spent the day flirting with a sophomore page, sending her racy and witty notes and generally holding court. She adores me, I can tell. We dated till I left for college, then again from May to December of 1988. We were never able to develop a common love for U2, and our relationship ultimately died.
August, 1987. U2 is conquering the world. I’m unloading my car at the dorm for the first time as an incoming college freshman. “Where the Streets Have No Name” is playing on the radio. I might or might not have my U2 shirt on. I do not have my letterjacket on.
October, 1987. I see U2 at Kemper Arena in Kansas City. Bono tells the crowd about how he was at the record store and became disgusted by the incessant need to categorize everything into a genre. He rattles some off: “Gospel”, “Rock”, “Christmas”, then with a husky Irish growl he says, “It’s all fuckin’ music!” The crowd loves Bono. Bono said “fuck”! I have bad seats, but it doesn’t matter. I saw U2, and I have a new shirt, too. On the way home, I make out with a woman in the back seat who weighs approximately 84 pounds. She says she really likes the Alarm. Whatever.
January, 1988. I get new roommates, Steve and Scott from the debate team. Steve is a devoted metalhead with a developing speed metal habit, the hard stuff like Slayer, Megadeth, Nuclear Assault. Speed metal scares me. A lot. And it seems to make Steve crazy! Two weeks later, I’m hooked on speed metal. Strangest thing.
Spring, 1988. U2 releases Rattle and Hum. The album is fine. The movie, not so much. I feel a strange and unexpected sense of indifference towards U2 now. Late one night, I remove my Joshua Tree concert shirt and replace it with a Metallica shirt. My transformation is complete.
Summer, 1991. U2 releases Achtung Baby. I’m barely aware it happens. My roommate and debate partner Jim loves it, but he’s such a U2 baby he’d love anything they do. All I can think about is Nirvana. All I wear is my Nirvana shirt from the concert at the KU Union Ballroom.
Fall, 1993. I’m a grad student at Kansas State. One of the debaters I coach tells me she’s going to see U2’s Zooropa tour. That’s nice, I say. I ask if she’s heard the new Jesus Lizard album. She hasn’t. Three days later I see her in the Zooropa shirt. It accentuates her magnificent rack, but, being a coach, I know I shouldn’t try to have an illicit relationship with more than one debater at a time. She says the concert ruled, and I laugh about how cute it is that I thought my college freshman U2 concert was good, too. Stupid kids.
Fall, 2004. I’m sitting in my basement in St. Paul. I see an iPod commercial. I like the iPod commercials generally, and usually like the songs. This commercial has a particularly catchy song on it. I like this song. Then I see Bono on the screen, in black silhouette against a green background. Then the Edge! Then Larry Mullen, Adam Clayton. This is a U2 song!
November, 2004. I can’t get the U2 song out of my head, even though I’ve only heard an edited version about 30 seconds long. It begins, “Uno, dos, tres, catorze…” Jane doesn’t like that they go from three to fourteen, but like the GOP House, rock stars make their own rules.
November 20, 2004, 11:10 pm CST. U2 is on Saturday Night Live. I tune in. They sing the iPod song, the name of which I still don’t know, and at this point don’t need to know because it will forever be “the iPod song” to me. Bono starts the song calling out “Live. Live. Live. Live.” in response to the Ashlee Simpson Debacle of a couple weeks ago. Not only is U2 live, they are seriously kicking the ass out of this new song of theirs, this iPod song. U2 looks pretty damn tight to me, not like a band that has been around for almost 30 years. I’m thrilled that the favorites from my youth can still get it done. And the guitars are finally back!
November 20, 2004, 11:35 pm CST. U2 sings their second song. It’s slower, but good. I start to think maybe this new album coming out on November 23, same day as the Ron Artest album, today, in fact, might be pretty good.
November 20, 2004, 11:55 pm CST. Saturday Night Live comes back for the traditional goodbye from the cast. Guest host Luke Wilson sits on the stage with Bono and shakes his hand. But instead of waving goodbye, Bono is getting up and walking toward the music stage. The Edge busts out the riff from “I Will Follow”, U2’s first modest hit from 1980. The crowd and SNL cast go nuts. U2 rips into the song like a bunch of 20 year-old kids. I start to wonder where my U2 shirts ended up.
November 20, 2004, 11: 58 pm CST. Bono leaps from the stage and rubs his crotch on an amazed woman in the front row while singing. The crowd goes nuts for the crotch rub. Nobody’s sure how the woman feels about it, but nobody really cares because there’s a Genuine Rock Moment going down in the room. Bono grabs a camera while strolling around the studio. He pulls it along and around, singing into the camera as he goes. I saw this move 19 years ago in the Giants Stadium show, and he still makes it work. He walks to the stage and hugs Amy Poehler. Damn that Bono! Amy Poehler looks like she’s about to melt in Bono’s arms. While the band is still going full force, Bono sings out to the crowd that there’s nothing else in the world like Saturday Night Live, and he’s right.
November 21, 2004, midnight. SNL signs off the air as U2 launches into an SNL unheard-of fourth song.
The crowd goes nuts.
9:02:27 PM 
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