November 23, 2004
Oh, how I miss Tower Records!
My love for that store will have to be a story in itself some other time, but what happened on this day is probably my last great memory of the place.
Die-hard music fans of all persuasions know that the best time to get a new album is at midnight on the morning of its release. Record stores don’t do this for just any album, but when a band like U2 has a horse in the race, they break out the extra staff.
Lines form starting around 10:00 p.m., which is when Teresa and I arrived to stake our place near the door for the release of How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. We’d helped host a listening party for the album two days earlier and were looking forward to getting our own copies ASAP.
News crews from local channels were beginning to show up and interview fans in line (making us regret our fashion choices, or lack thereof) when we started to realize: not everyone looks like a U2 fan.
Not to be judgmental, and certainly not to imply that you have to look a certain way to favor a certain band, but I’ve met thousands of U2 fans in my day and most of them don’t have long hair, threatening tattoos, and cigarettes dangling from their mouths.
The crowd outside Tower was nice enough, but as we started casually overhearing conversations, we knew there had to be another album by another band coming out at the exact same moment.
Just as we said that to each other, one of the TV stations began interviewing a long-haired, cardigan-wearing man and he expressed his joy at the anticipation of a new Nirvana album. It seems that the long-awaited boxed set from Nirvana was U2’s competition.
I loved Nirvana very much and felt a kinship with their tribe, but the juxtaposition of the Grunge Gods vs. the Rock Royalty was nothing short of funny.
Soon enough the two camps were talking to one another, essentially in two different musical languages, but the mood was kind and peaceful. The more I heard the Nirvana folks talk, the more I wanted to get their boxed set too, but my budget only allowed for one splurge that night so I had to stick with U2.
At the stroke of midnight we were all led in two-by-two so the cashiers could keep up with the purchase lines. Large displays indicated where each set of fans were supposed to land, and Teresa and I quickly grabbed our deluxe version of the U2 album, then went to check out.
Following our buys, we posed with cardboard cutouts of the band, which were sprinkled throughout the store.
Since we both had to work the next morning, we drove right home. I fell asleep to the sweet sounds of “City of Blinding Lights,” not knowing that five months later, I’d appear in the official video for that song.