U2 - New Year's Day (12" single)

My journey with U2 started with October, and soon after I picked up a copy of Boy. I put both of those albums on a single cassette and it lived in my car for a long time. My first car, purchased off my parents: a giant green 1973 Mercury Marquis Brougham only had an 8-track player, so I bought a cassette adapter from Radio Shack so I could have tunes in the car.

When the single dropped early in 1983 I eagerly snagged a copy, and then waited for the album. The title track was definitely U2, but it was different too. It was more, but it was hard to put a finger on, but it was awesome. Then there was the very rough "Treasure (Whatever Happened to Pete the Chop)" that remains to this day a lost track for the band. I suppose this was a rough mix, and was more reminiscent of their first two albums, and stylistically would have been ad odd duck going forward.

The second side contains live tracks taken from a Belgium television special from July of 1982, and contained "Fire," "I Threw a Brick Through a Window / A Day Without Me." These are wicked recordings and a snapshot of a band that was growing by leaps and bounds.

I was always sort of curious about the difference between the single version that was supposedly a "long version" coming in at 5:40 and the album version that was maybe a couple seconds shorter. I do remember doing a rough A - B comparison back in the day, but as I had to change the speed for the 12" and then back for the album by the time I'd played both they just sounded the same to me.

Regardless, this was a heady time to be a U2 fan. You could literally feel that something big was going to happen with their forthcoming album. If "New Year's Day" was any indication of what else was in store it was going to be a hell of a ride.

As to my long suffering vinyl copy, it's been through the wringer so to speak. It survived the great '90s crawl space flood, and although there is some damage to the jacket it's pretty intact, and the vinyl itself is still pristine.

I still find it strange that the performances here have not been preserved and made available. Truly a shame, this was a band right on the verge (almost said edge, har de har har) of making it big.

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