I’ve been wondering whether to write something like this for a while, but I haven’t been in the mood to write it since a few in

I’ve been wondering whether to write something like this for a while, but I haven’t been in the mood to write it since a few incidents in my personal life came up, as well as the impending threat of exams, which sadly reduces time for me to act like a fangirl nutcase in front of my friends’ list.

Unfortunately, incidents of fangirl nutcasery have occurred in the past few months, sadly reducing time for me to work on more important ventures such as revision. Today, however, I’m on a break from revision and decided to write this instead.

Now, in the unlikely event that some of you who read my blog don’t already know this nugget of information about me, I shall recall it to you now, before you read any further in this probably incoherent fan essay: I am a U2 fan.

Got that? Right – so, on with the show that is “My U2 Story”, then.

Dim the lights, put on some music (preferably U2 if any is available), brew some tea and sit comfortably. The year is, let’s say, 2001. It is the high summer, and a young girl is on her first holiday away from home (School Journey 2000 didn’t count. It was a travesty of a mockery of a holiday, so erase thoughts of it from your memory, if you please). The holiday is a PGL – organised activity break, which, in spite of the fact that the young girl has to spend seven days of her life with other preteens that she despises, she rather enjoys. It is her first real taste of independence.

Plus, she loves abseiling.

In that same year, a film based on the game “Tomb Raider” comes out. Admittedly, it is rather crap, but that doesn’t stop the PGL organisers from stocking a copy of the soundtrack and playing it at any possible moment. One of the tracks on there is U2’s “Elevation.” Yes, that is the one about the mole, digging in a hole, digging up his soul now, etc.

Cast your mind back to the young girl for a moment. She has been raised in a household surrounded by music for the first ten years of her life, and yet she has never really felt a connection, let’s say, with a band before. She isn’t that interested with the music that most of her peers like. When she hears the intro to “Elevation,” however, things change. It isn’t a dramatic change, but she feels that something has been switched on inside her and it would never be turned back off again.

There is a boy. Oh, you say, there’s always a boy in these sorts of situations. Is there? I respond. Yes, you answer stubbornly. Anyway, there is a boy. He is about the same age as the girl, possibly a little older, and has a taste in music that the girl admires with a frenzied pre – teen passion: Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers - the sort of bands that boys in their early teens really should like, and the sort of bands that girls in their early teens should avoid like the plague.

The girl notices that he rather likes the U2 song on the CD they’re always playing, too. On the last day of the holiday, the girl and the boy are on speaking terms. There isn’t anything romantic between them – they’re just a couple of kids who dig music.

By the morning they are supposed to go their separate ways, they say goodbye to each other in the only way they could do.

They jump about immaturely to “Elevation”.

As you could have probably guessed, that girl was me. Sadly, I never got back in contact with the boy I mentioned. I couldn’t even remember what he looked like, or what his name was, until I cast my mind back to the first time I heard a U2 song. Such are the powers of the song, I suppose. All I can remember now is that his name was Michael and he had a twin. It might have been the twin that I moshed at the PGL disco with, or it might have been Michael. It’s almost as if they’re one person in my memory now. I like to think that the two guys are doing rather well at the moment. They’re either in the same situation I am, in the year younger or are a year older. Whatever. At least I remembered who they were, anyway.

It’s time now to go back to the story. As soon as I got back, and as soon as I had recovered from the holiday, I spoke to my dad about the new U2 song that I’d heard, as well. It turned out that he had already bought a copy of the album that it was from: “All That You Can’t Leave Behind,” in case you didn’t already figure that out by the fact that it was 2001 at the time.

So, I uploaded it on to my computer and listened. I could hear so much in that album that I had never heard before in music. There was joy, hope, anguish, sorrow; love, even. “Beautiful Day” was a song to wake up to. “Stuck In A Moment” was one to listen to in my darker preteen moments. “Elevation” was, well, “Elevation”: it would always remind me of that summer when I discovered a band that would, from then, provide a song for every occasion.

It was true. They did. I won’t bore you with the details, but take my word for it.

Unfortunately, I started to get into the band as soon as their “Elevation” tour had finished. It was a shame – that would have been a perfect opportunity for me to make this story a whole lot better and more detailed, but I suppose I just missed that moment in their career. “U2 Go Home” made a more than decent substitute for the real thing, however. As soon as my dad put two and two together and realised that I was, slowly but surely, finding the voice of a favourite band, he promised that the next time U2 were touring, he would take me to see a show.

I must add at this moment that he kept to his word.

Between albums and tours, (three years seemed like an eternity to my younger self) I searched. I searched for some more of U2’s back catalogue, and I developed a real liking for two of their biggest albums: “The Unforgettable Fire” and “The Joshua Tree.” I’d like to say at this point that the first CD I bought was “The Unforgettable Fire”. It wasn’t. It was the second.

The first?

“Middle of Nowhere”, by Hanson. I was eight. There’s a subtle difference.

Once I’d immersed myself in those two, I did something very brave. I looked in my parents’ collection of books and found a Musicians’ Union handbook with the addresses to contact bands and artists. Of course, I pored through the “U” section until I found my band of choice. I wrote them a fan letter, and drew a few silly doodles on an inside envelope. Sometimes I wonder whether they ever read it, but then I dismiss these thoughts and go back to what I’m doing. Of course they couldn’t have! They probably got millions of letters and e – mails every day. Still, I enjoyed writing the letter, and that was the main thing.

For a few years, I forget about U2 for a while. I start broadening my taste; start listening to other bands that seem interesting. Unfortunately, because these bands are guitar based indie and because I am thirteen at the time, I still go unnoticed. Most of the people at school are still listening to top – 40 pop and are comfortable with it.

U2 are still in the back of my mind, of course. “Walk On” got me through more than a few incidents of bullying. Just the sound of one of their songs on the radio or MTV would calm me down and reassure me that things would pan out eventually.

When I heard “Vertigo” on Top Of The Pops (yes, when it was still on!) I became about as excited as a puppy when they discover where the dog biscuits are hidden. For a while before and after How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and its respective singles came out, I scoured the music magazines that lay around the flat for a hopeful announcement of U2’s gigs in the U.K. Sure enough, one day in about March or April, it was announced that the boys would play Twickenham Stadium on the 18th and 19th of June, 2005. I was ecstatic. My dad fought and fought for tickets in the battle between and Ticketmaster. Eventually, he proved successful. He really did keep to his word, after all.

For a while before the show, I would, mid – conversation, cry out “we’re going to see U2!” much to the annoyance of mum (who hates them, except for “Numb” and “Electrical Storm”. Funny choices for only songs she can stand, I’ve always thought) and to the fellow excitement of dad. He loves them, but not as much as I do now.

The show was, for want of a better word, spectacular.

We waited for hours between support bands; then before walk – on music, but the time finally came in the sweltering heat of the afternoon. We, and all the other manic fans, including a group of Spanish twentysomethings that we encountered on the train, were in awe. There were some who had vintage (or so it seemed) tour shirts on, there were a few people who looked as if it were their first times at a show, like dad and I, there was even a family with their baby son behind us.

When the opening riff to Vertigo started up, we all flailed our arms and tried to mosh, even though we weren’t even in the pit. Dad went crazy when they played “I Will Follow.” I sang along with every word to “Elevation.”

“One?” It was the most joyous, hopeful thing I’ve ever seen.

Just to remind you, this was right at the height of the “Make Poverty History” campaign, and the boys were in full support of it. We were asked to add our names to an online petition by sending a text, with our names, to a number that they displayed on the enormous screen behind them.

A few weeks later, I received a text message from Bono saying “thank you for signing the petition”, and things like that. It even said “dear Phoebe” before the message that would have been sent out to everyone who signed the petition. I know in my right mind that this was something mass – sent, but I still loved getting the text.

Since that show, for these two years at college, my life has been soundtracked by the boys’ songs – there have been other bands of course, but they’ve always been there whatever happens. They’ve seen me through exams, through friendships, through hard times, through good times, through writing, through, well, through life.

And it still doesn’t bother me that Bono bears a striking resemblance to Robin Williams.