by Kimberly Junod, Producer, World Cafe and Conversations from the World Cafe

When I was a kid my Dad would always get stuck on one particular CD for a while, and play it, and play it, and play it. And play it. I remember when he got into U2’s Joshua Tree album. I thought it was some of the silliest music ever — in particular the song “Bullet the Blue Sky.” I called it the song of the dying guitar. I don’t remember what happened that made me change my mind about U2, but for Christmas in 1991, I asked for the newly released Achtung Baby. And it was my turn to play an album over, and over, and over. And over. And it started an obsession. I bought every U2 CD (and sort of, um, took over my Dad’s copy of Joshua Tree — and didn’t replace it for 15 years — sorry, Dad!). I knew everything that was in all the liner notes — engineers, producers, random references. I read Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale because of U2, joined Amnesty International because of U2, and decided I wanted to be a sound engineer because of U2. While my best friend was collecting New Kid’s on the Block stickers, I was naming my hermit crab Hewson (after Bono’s real last name). I spent a scary amount of time on Prodigy message boards talking about U2 (much more time than I spent writing papers for school on the computer!). I made tapes of my U2 CDs so that if I was away from my CD player I could still listen to U2 on my Walkman.

When I was in high school, my family moved from the USA to Australia, right as U2 was touring there. I begged my Dad to let me go. I had been to maybe one other concert before that and had been in the country for less than a week. I still didn’t always understand what Australians were saying when they were talking, and I had no idea where anything was. And I had never lived in a city before (and now was in Australia’s biggest city). But I was dying to go. And being the great Dad that he is, he somehow found me tickets.

I wanted to get there as early as possible (along with the other obsessive fans). I took a cab. Which got in an accident. On a multi-lane highway. I had no idea where I was, somewhere in between the hotel my family was staying at and the venue. And this was before cell phones, so I had no one to call. While the cabbie argued with the driver who hit him, a bus stopped by, and offered to drive me to the venue. (Talk about luck!)

When I got there, I waited all day, with the other fans in the hot Australian sun, for over 12 hours, wanting to be among the first to race into the general admission area. I was slightly afraid of getting trampled, but more afraid of not getting to the front. When we were let in, I did get to the front roped off portion near the stage. And it was all that I hoped it would be. I think that concert was the biggest high I ever had with music. I was amazed — the songs, the spectacle of the show, getting to see the band I loved so much, being a only a person away from stage — it was overwhelming.

Better yet, my Dad had followed me. And despite having shown up shortly before the concert started, he somehow made it into the front roped off area of general admission too. So we got to share the concert (though he was nice enough to not let me know that he was 5 feet behind me until after the whole thing was over!).

Since that time I’ve loved a lot of songs, bands, and music. I’ve read up on other people obsessively, buying the expensive British music magazines when I really didn’t have the money to be buying them. Spending afternoons browsing the racks at CD stores. Making piles of mix tapes. Standing in line for hours for concert tickets. Taking a sound engineering course, majoring in music in college, interning and then getting a job at WXPN. But I don’t think anything compares to that first love of U2, or my first time seeing them in concert!