Hi all
To be perfectly honest, it's kind of hard for me to call myself a superfan nowadays. It seems that being of "older" years and having things that people call "responsibilities" does limit your ability to get obsessed with something to the same level that you could when you were younger. However, when I was younger, and to a certain degree still, I like to think of myself as a superfan.
So what exactly is a superfan? Let's put it this way; I'm one of those lunatics that you see queuing outside of concert venues for hours on end, just to get a chance to get to the front of a stadium. I've also got an extensive collection of weird and wacky memorabilia in my loft, ranging from rare bootleg CD's to concert merchandise such as inflatable lemons and U2 themed Rubiks cube.
My obsession started when I was about 16 I think. Even though I am pretty sure that I had heard The Joshua Tree being played by my parents when I was younger than that, the outstanding memory I have is hearing "Even Better than the Real Thing" at a mate's house in what must have been about 1994. That guitar riff just captivated me. I managed to get him to do a fast dubbing tape to tape copy (there's a reference that anyone under 30 might struggle to get) of Achtung Baby, their 1991 album and I must have played that tape to destruction. I also managed to get a copy of The Joshua Tree (1987). Those two albums were basically on repeat for 2 years until I headed off to uni, and that when the obsession really kicked in.
The thing about going to university in the UK back in the late 90's was that it was free to attend, and you were able to get a student loan to pay for "things you needed". In my case, "things I needed" were basically U2 bootlegs that some dodgy guy used to come round selling every few weeks. I must have bought hundreds, everything from recordings of live shows to Paul Oakenfold remixes of Achtung Baby songs.
I spent many an hour on "Wire", one of the first U2 related newsgroups, posting a load of rubbish; hell, I was 18 and very naive. Some of those posts are still indexed by Google!. Made a lot of friends though; even sold CD's full of MP3's across the world (before that became illegal!)
Then along came the album "Pop" and my first ever live show. I remember it well, 23 August 1997 at Wembley Stadium, London. I got there at about 6 am and queued up all day long in order to get to the front. This was my first stadium gig. One thing about U2 gigs; there is a real sense of community and I am still friends to this day with people that I met back then.
From then on, I bought every album, every single and went to at least one show on every tour. More often than not I'd hit 3 or 4 if they were in or around London.
One of the best experiences of my life took place in 2001, when I won tickets to see the band at the London Astoria. There were about 100 people at the gig and we, of course, got there first thing and got right to the front. Bono stood on my wife's hand during the show - something she will never forget!! It was an amazing show and the first time we had heard the songs from the album, "All That You Can't Leave Behind" live. We also got the opportunity to meet Adam and Larry at the back of the Astoria where they signed copies of our albums and chatted to us for a while.
From then on, we did all of the tours, during which I started to get interested in taking photos of the band while they were live on stage. Not the easiest thing to do - back in the days before smartphone cameras you actually had to try and sneak cameras into gigs. I even once tried to sneak in a proper SLR with lenses down my trousers. Got the camera in but got caught taking pics during the gig and was asked to put the camera away by security. The photos shown throughout this post were all taken by myself.
I have now kind of stopped taking too many pictures at gigs. The proliferation of people who watch gigs through their phones has turned a lot of gigs into an un-atmospheric experience compared to how they were about 15 years ago and I find that i have to ditch the camera in order to immerse myself in the songs.
Saying that, I'm really looking forward to seeing the guys come back to the UK towards the end of this year. Tickets are going to be purchased very soon as I am pretty impressed with the latest album, Songs of Experience. "The Blackout" is possibly one of my favourite tracks of all time. Check it below.
Thanks for reading
Mark