Every month we put an U2 fan in the spotlights, the fan of the month September 2008 is user Please login or register to view this link. Yeah is a longtime U2-fan from Germany who became a fan of U2 thanks to his older brother.
Every fan of the month has an interview with us, you can read our interview with yeah in this topic:
Tell us something about yourself, who are you and what do you do for a living?
I'm a longtime U2-Fan from Germany who doesn't feel to comfortable with sharing too much personal information on the net, so bare with me if. I keep the answer on this one rather short. I'll touch the magic 30 in way too little time and live in a town called Goettingen in the heart of Germany. :-)
How did you become a fan of U2, tell us how it happened?
You can blame my older brother for my U2 love. Believe me, I cursed him several times for introdcucing me to them. He indirectly is responsible for the huge amount of money, time and work I spent. He played U2 music in his room most of the day and became a huge fan with the Unforgettable Fire. Soon after the release of JT, he played the album over and over again at high volume. I didn't understand a word from the lyrics but I liked the music and also sang along
to older tracks like "Nu jeeahs deh" :-).
I became a real fan with the release of Achtung Baby, though. I understood most of the lyrics now, I liked the darker atmosphere and loved the whole musical change, their new style...I bought the singles, visited my first concert, started trading in cooperation with my brother...
Did you ever have a special U2 experience like a live concert? Can you tell us something about it?
I've been to several concerts since Zoo TV and try to visit all german and some french gigs.
The best concert I witnessed was Mannheim 1997. It was raining cats and dogs, the venue was empty, but the boys delivered an amazing performance. It is documented pretty well on the
soundboard recording, a pretty good audience recording and a (crap) DVD.
The worst live moment I had happened a few days before in Cologne - The gig was good (I think) but I was so drunk that I had to throw up during One...
What would you like to ask U2 if you got the chance to?
Whatever happened to Pete the Chop?
In your opinion, what has been U2's defining moment and why?
When I'm asked about U2, there are several images that come to my mind. You know, there's this naive, idealistic young guy who waves his white flag and yells for peace. Red Rocks is a good example for that.
There also is this B&W moment with Larry's "It's a musical journey" in a time where people wanted to see ROck'n'roll get back into it's box.
Then of course there's The Fly/Mirrorball Man/Macphisto and their phone calls... There's Bono who wanted to meet god and got himself sold religion.
And there's also Bono in company of Bush, Merkel, Sarkozy - that might be a defining moment for the beginning of the end...
I think, their defining moment as a band came off stage, out of the public even - in Berlin when they worked on Achtung Baby - they were close to split up but decided to go on and came back bigger than ever. That's not as glamerous as the Live Aid performance or other funky moments - but that was an essential time imho.
What does your U2 collection look like? What kind of stuff do you have and how is it organised?
My collection looks rather ordinary. I'm no completist. Talking about official releases, I have all albums in CD-Format, some vinyls, most if not all 90's singles (gotta check), all live VHS/DVDs and a few Promo releases as well as some merchandising stuff like posters, T-shirts, tour programs,the condoms, etc.
The music is organized chronologically in a CD/DVD rack. The rest is either framed on my walls or lying around in boxes.
Apart from that, I have a bootleg collection. I bought about 30-50 Silver CDs in the past and, as i mentioned before, I started trading in the 90's. So I have a bunch of old cassette tapes, VHS tapes, CD's and DVDs. This stuff is organized
by tour; the DVDs are in simple plastic sleeves in several boxes to keep them from too much light. I'm not too keen about artwork or jewel cases and keep track of them with a simple word sheet.
How has the online age affected trading? Did you prefer the old way?
The Internet has had an immense effect on trading. In the beginning, the online age simply made it easier to communicate with and to find other/new traders. But then, it slowly started to replace the old snale mail trading.
Most stuff is accessible to everyone now. While it's good to see that many people now can enjoy hundreds of boots for free, I also think that the online age has devalued the whole thing. People don't appreciate any more what they have or get.
There are people who build up collections of 500 DVDs in 3 months without even watching any of the stuff. Some guys create Compilation DVDs just to have some new material. There are other people complaining if there's no bootleg available 2 days after a show has ended. Taper's wishes often get jeopardized.
Respect became an unknown word for some folks.
I can't really say that I prefer the old way, though. Sometimes when I look back in nostalgia, I remember how great it was to go to the mailbox every morning when you waited for a package, to wait for an answer after setting up an announcement in the "Pride"-Fanzine
- but then I realize how long all this took, how much easier it is now, how many good quality stuff I got through the hub, torrents, etc. - and the old fashioned trading isn't dead. There's still some stuff that's not meant to pop up on the net and that gets traded the old way...
In summary, both methods have their pros and cons. In moments of nostalgia I prefer one, in moments of lazyness, I prefer the other.
In a house fire, which one of your U2 items would you save?
The old holey, dirty T-shirt with the Buffaloes on the front and "One" in different languages on the back. Lots of great memories on this one.
What are your hobbies and interests away from U2, musical or otherwise?
I spend a lot of time on the internet. I've been an admin on 3 different U2 sites over the years, so that certainly is/was a hobby - unfortunately I don't have as much time for that as I used to . I also spend some time on listening/watching the other bands I love, such as R.E.M., The Manic Street Preachers, Foo Fighters, Radiohead,...
I play football 2 or 3 times a week and if there's some time left, I like to spend it with the Missy. :-)
If you could enjoy dinner with three other people, living or dead, who would you choose and why?
1) Richy Edwards (disappeared member of the Manics) - I'd like to know what happened to him. Is he dead, alive?...
2) Jesus of Nazareth - I wanna see if he really is the guy everybody says he is.
3) Karl Marx - one of the big minds. And it might be a cool dicussion between him and Jesus.
Thanks for this interview yeah!
Note: Our crew members randomly pick fans of the month, you can't sign up for it
If you could enjoy dinner with three other people, living or dead, who would you choose and why?
1) Richy Edwards (disappeared member of the Manics) - I'd like to know what happened to him. Is he dead, alive?...
2) Jesus of Nazareth - I wanna see if he really is the guy everybody says he is.
3) Karl Marx - one of the big minds. And it might be a cool dicussion between him and Jesus.
What about Angelina? Charlize Theron? Salma Hayek?
If you could enjoy dinner with three other people, living or dead, who would you choose and why?
1) Richy Edwards (disappeared member of the Manics) - I'd like to know what happened to him. Is he dead, alive?...
2) Jesus of Nazareth - I wanna see if he really is the guy everybody says he is.
3) Karl Marx - one of the big minds. And it might be a cool dicussion between him and Jesus.
What about Angelina? Charlize Theron? Salma Hayek?
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did you know? Bono has four kids (two girls and two boys); The Edge has four daughters and a son; and Larry has two boys and a girl.
bootleg of the month Every month we have a bootleg in the spotlights, the current one took place on 2005-05-18 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. You can download this bootleg, read reviews or write your own review here. You can also join the discussion on this bootleg in our forums.
popular concerts According to our user reviews, 1987-07-08 - Brussels, Belgium is the best bootleg we have in our collection. Our users also think that 1993-08-28 - Dublin, Ireland was a great concert since it appears the most in the list of favorite concerts.
latest site news Jeremy, known as haytrain here, is the latest addition to the U2start crew. Jeremy will be a crew member specialised in bootlegs, he will mainly work on maintaining our bootleg collection, making it even better, more r.. (read more)
news headlines We cover the news of many international U2 websites including U2.com, the most popular headline in the last two weeks was 'U2 fans queue in mysterious ways' from atu2.com.
popular songs Where The Streets Have No Name is the most-requested song from the song pages and quite popular. According to the favorite song lists of our users, Bad is the all-time favorite song.
fan of the month Every month we put an U2 fan in the spotlights, the fan of this month is user Ali709. Every fan of the month has an interview with us, you can read our interview with Ali709 here.
"Larry looked like some kind of porn star, Edge looked like his sister Jill; I looked like Barbara Bush and Adam hasn't taken the dress OFF."
- Bono on dressing up in drag for the "One" video
