I knew about U2 because of my father...he was so into new music, that one day he came from work with that 3 vinyl set Rattle and Hum. As an 8 old kid i was mesmerized, i really was blown with the sound. Day after day i listen to it, and read the lyrics that came in it. I learned English reading and trying to understand u2 lyrics, as i am from Mexico. Obviously my favorite u2 era is the 90's, but as i was growing up i just earned money to listen to their previous story...one of that albums was The Joshua Tree, which i remember as great songwriting as a band can do. Loved Exit, loved Red Hill Mining Town, and i really really really i'm a fan of the last songs...no so keen on the first ones...

In 1987, I was a rock music loving 20 something with not much money, a transistor radio, and a subscription to a music service that I joined to get 25 albums (yes, albums) for one cent. A few months later, I was trying to get out of the subscription as I couldn't afford the albums at full price (at that time, about $7.00 U.S. per album). So I had to keep sending them back, hoping they'd take the hint. In the last few years I realized that I sent back "The Joshua Tree". What was I thinking? If I had a do over, I would have kept it & then spent the next month trying to end the subscription. After I did get the album, what I heard was amazing. I had already been introduced to "Streets", "I Still Haven't Found...", and to the song that is playing on my computer at this very minute, from Big 105.9 in Miami "With or Without You" (WHAT A SONG, WOW!!!) The rest of the songs were just as wonderful as those first three. Fast forward to two years ago in Phoenix, when the guys played "In God's Country" after not having played it in years. It was the perfect song in the perfect place, and I could feel that everyone in the arena thought that, too. Thank you, Bono, Edge, Adam & Larry for an amazing work of art that is as fresh today as it was 30 years ago.

Like all the best albums your favourite track changing, at one point it was Streets, then it was Exit, then Running to Stand Still, With or Without you. A constantly changing favourite, is truly the sign of an amazing album and Joshua Tree has so many, and 30 years later I am still looking for my favourite track and it still keeps changing.

It came out almost ten years before I was born, yet I still grew up listening to The Joshua Tree. My dad used to play it for my siblings and I on trips to and from the beach. As we were crowded in the backseat of his Jeep, feeling the whipping wind on our faces and watching the California sun set beneath the waves, I heard Where The Streets Have No Name for the very first time. My imagination was set ablaze, as then I had no idea where such a place could be or what it might look like, but still its limitless beauty was real as anything, in my head and in my heart. Many years later, when I was about to turn sixteen, we were talking about the record and my dad casually mentioned that Joshua Tree was a real place, just a few hours away from our home by the coast. I couldn't believe it. The next day we went on a road trip to the high desert, blaring the album the whole way there, and when I finally laid eyes on the landscape that Bono had sung so passionately about after a whole childhood of dreaming about it, I nearly cried. Growing up near the ocean, I never understood what it meant to yearn for a promised land until I saw those crooked crosses in person, and the passionate thirst they inspired in me for beauty and truth has been with me ever since. To me, The Joshua Tree is and always has been the soundtrack to my deepest longing, my wildest dreams, and, most importantly, my home.

First I want to say that I am proud that U2.com put one of my JT Collection Pictures on the top of this article. As I told, it was very difficult to get a JT copy in the little part of Austria in March 1987. The most of the few copies the record Company ordered for Austria were sold in Vienna and I live on the other side of our country. But in this time there were also more things in contrast to now. It was very difficult to receive Informations about u2 and their activities. We had no MTV and the only possibility to see a U2 video was a television show. In this 60 minutes show, the viewer can phone and wish a video. In this selction you can choose Streets, Still haven't found and With or without you. I can remember, that i watch this show every afternoon (instead of learning for the school) and hoped that someone choose one of this Video. And I can tell you, the Viewer of this show always selected Nikita from Elton John, Take my breath away from Top Gun or some other songs I didn't wanted to hear. But if someone seldom choose a U2 song, it saved my day. It was also impossible to collect rare items but I catched up on everything. The Joshua Tree is every day on my side. One of my children was baptized Joshua Joel (the other Noah Bono) and if I want to relax I go to the room on the Picture, hear my favourite music and remember the time in 1987. The last Thing I want to tell concerning the Joshua Tree is the story of my passport. We saw the first two shows in Croke Park 2005 . After the second gig we walked back into the city and saw that a few people were waiting infront of the Clarence Hotel. We also waited some short time and Bono arrived, I was carrying a cloth patch of The Joshua Tree but I forgot that it was impossible to sign this flexible patch without something hard underneath it. So I put my passport under the patch and gave it Bono to sign the patch. In my opinion a slightly drunken Bono signed the patch and opened my passport to sign again. Some days later I had some troubles to go through the customs It was 30 years I saw U2 for the first time and in this summer my family will go to the concert in Roma and my two boys will see U2 for the first time. After these gigs, I will also go to Dublin and Amsterdam and it will be a very special feeling to hear the "other JT songs" live in middle of hundrets of U2 fans with JT T-shirts.

I met my wife waiting on line for Joshua Tree tickets April 1987. She was 19, beautiful and a u2 lover. 30 years later we've been to tons of shows and have two great kids. So no Tree, no family... Thanks boys...

The ultimate song for me when growing up, named my oldest son after this album. One of the greatest album ever made. Followed U2 throughout my life, been very lucky to have seen them in concert many times. Looking forward to travelling Rome from the UK in July.

I was just out of high school when Joshua tree came out. It was nothing like ive heard before and that's why this album and others stand the test of time. I remember sleeping out for tickets in new haven ct and we were playing Frisbee at 1:00 in the morning in the rain. that was when you slept out for tickets! It was for the concert in the new haven coliseum in Ct .I remember we had tickets on the floor and the band made the floor vibrate from there sound, they were tight and sounded great! The following year I went to Ireland and saw copies of the Joshua Tree in a pub that U2 had gone too I forget the name of it but it was in Dublin. I tried to get tickets to this years concert but it was sold out. Im glad they are doing this concert again it will bring people back to when they were younger and great memories . KEN HANEY

I suppose college is the proper time to first experience the power of music. Hearing w/ or w/o you on the LOOP-FM98, and then listening to the entire LP the night it was released with three friends in a dorm room - it opened two things to me: 1) an appreciation of the arts, and 2) existential questions that must be shared with others. Each of the three guys in the title make up a small piece of who I am and never do I listen to this album without thinking of them and revisiting the who and the why of life. Doing so re-centers me and leaves me with a bit of peace in the process.

I left NYC disillusioned. I thought it was my path, I thought I was meant to be an actor. I decided to uproot my life and spend time with my uncle in Seattle. It was there that I really engrossed myself in Joshua Tree. I was aware of U2 and did like some of their tunes, but I wouldn't call myself a fan. But as I wandered around town listening to "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" Late at night I found comfort in Bono's words. Here was a man that was at the height of his talents, and he still felt undecided. It's a universal message, that made me stop being so hard on myself. The music of U2 and The Joshua Tree has reinvigorated me, given me a new lease. I thank the band for giving me back my confidence and for being a constant companion in darker times over the past few years. There's something about their songs that strike a balance between the common man, the nostalgia, the love. I hope that someday I can say to someone "and when I go there, I go there with you. It's all I can do."

I was 12 years old when I asked my brother to take me to see the Joshua Tree tour. My mother said no, that I was too young to go. From that moment I told my self I would never not see U2 again. Little did I know that music from this album would be a part of every major moment of my life. Graduation, marriage, birth and death. I choose to listen to the album when I need something extra to get through the day. When I turn on the radio, Pandora or Spotify, and songs from the Joshua Tree com on, I know exactly how my day will go. It is the exact pick me up that I need for every situation. I know every lyric, every video and every moment that was impacted by each song. I don't think my life would have been the same without it.

I fell in love with U2 when I listened to "Under a Blood Red Sky". I spent all my pocket money on U2's back catalogue and was so excited when The Joshua Tree was released. My first ever live gig was the Joshua Tree tour at Murrayfield in Edinburgh - the T-shirt I bought that day became my lucky shirt that I wore to every exam during school and Uni. 7 years ago I took my kids on a road trip in the US - we braved 50 degrees C heat in Death Valley to find the actual Joshua Tree - unfortunately it had fallen, but we were so excited to find a treasure box of U2 mementos at the site. I'm now taking my kids to see the tour in Dublin this year. It will be my son's first live gig - I just hope they enjoy it as much as I will!!

I was 20. Young free and single. Music was and still is a huge part of my life. It makes my heart beat faster! I bought With or without you an a single cassette and of course still haven't found and streets. This album is my go to album. Not just U2 but my favourite of all artists I like. I remember looking at the picture on the album cover and just knew I had to go there. I instinctively knew it was Death Valley. In 1992 I was lucky enough to go to Zabriski point where the picture was taken. Magical. Just amazing. Got a Joshua Tree tattoo on my right arm. Thank you for such a fantastic album. My all time favourite!!

There was this former "Youth Radio DT 64" in the GDR (East Germany before the wall came down). In 1986 they played 1 or 2 songs. I was 12. And i thought: Wow! What's this??? In 1987 i found an article in "Melody and Rhythm" (music magazine) about the 4 guys from Ireland. I was already caught in their spell. I knew the guys are very special. I knew: i wanted more! I had a tape of U2 (i got it from a friend) ... i played it up and down ... it all felt so different ... so special - the music was so….different…from another world!! When finally the wall came down i bought everything from U2! EVERYTHING! I felt in love with these 4 irish guys - already with 12 ... whether consciously or unconsciously. I felt in love…and i´m still in love with my heroes - since them ... until the end of my life.

I'm more attached to AB but JT prepared the field for the next one. My best friend made me discovered the group i've heard once during the liveaid. She was listening to JT on repeat mode. So since then, every time I hear it, it brings me to these holidays in England 87 ! Bullet the blue sky is still my favorite from the album, loud on earphone or not. It was also the beginning of videos on tv for me, i can remember where i was the first time i saw 'with or without you' on french tv !!! It has left me speechless.

Songs are spiritual and about hope. Never give up. "Joshua Tree" is the best album, ever. Will see them in Louisville.

U2. Wow. Where to begin....this could become quite the quag. I remember listening to Red Rocks over and over, and watching the VHS tape til it literally shredded itself...or the VCR ate it. I remember thinking I couldn't wait to see them live in concert someday. Red Rocks also got me back tracking on U2 and searching for and purchasing any album or 45 I could find. Then came TJT. Released on my birthday, March 9. Then came the video release of With or Without you...good ole V66 (Boston station) and MTV, waited for it and watched it over and over again. Then the tour was announced. This was it, finally. As the concert date got closer my parents had become big fans as well. They decided they wanted in too! This would also be the first concert I went to with my parents. I think there were 8 of us in all that would go. Then.....September 20, 1987....Bono falls at RFK stadium. I was heartbroken for his injury, but sad that there was the possibility our show two nights later would be cancelled. This would be the first time I learned, not much keeps Bono and the guys down. The show would go on!! And what a show it was. I was hooked from that day on. If they toured, I'd find a way to see them. My parents were hooked, and they took it further and would travel to see them....Las Vegas, Miami, NYC. I'd go all fan girl if they were in the Boston area, just to get an autograph or a quick snap shot. I remember one night, and timing it right and got my first autograph as they were walking into the Four Seasons. The night my maternal grandmother passed away we once again had tickets to a show... March 17, 1992. St Patricks Day at the Boston Garden. Oh Danny boy...did we look forward to this show. My mom decided that we should all go, she knew nana would want us to go. After the show, we'd find mom and her brother waiting for us in the bar below the Gahden. Raise a pint for nana! Zoo-TV....Foxboro Stadium. Pop Mart ....and, myself very pregnant but not about to miss a show...especially since this was a first time with front row seats to anything! There was Edge, right in front of me! Thrill of a lifetime. Elevation tour @ the Fleet Center and first concert at the "new" Boston Garden. This was fun. Another family outing, this time we booked rooms at the same hotel U2 was staying at. Unfortunately, I went a little too fan girl and got overly excited. My sister and I got blocked from getting pictures, but our own doing. A lesson learned. Vertigo... I missed this one. A divorce and three kids, didn't leave me with the option of going. 360 Tour...this was great. I raised my son listening to U2, this was the first time we would go to a show together. What a night. My parents and siblings were also there too. Mom and dad always had the good seats, so just looking down watching them enjoying the show are memories I will never forget. The IE tour July 10, 2015....sigh. The emotions I experienced on this night were something I will never forget. My dad passed away in 2011. This was the first time seeing U2 without him. My son turned 21 the day before the show. I got tickets for mom and I close to the side stage. It was the first time I took her to a concert. It was emotional for both of us. We cried a lot that night....and celebrated too, as we know that's what dad would have wanted. I was lucky enough to get tickets to the closing night at the TD Garden and took along my son. And now on the horizon....TJT. I turn 50 on March 9th. I saved and splurged and got tickets for my kids and mom and my brother. We will be heading to Gillette Stadium. I lucked out and got two Red Zone tickets. We are all separated in different seating areas, but we'll all be there together. If I didn't bore you too much, and you read all the way through...thank you! It really did turn into quite the quag.

My husband is the biggest U2 fan and even got on stage in Chicago. Our daughter Evelyn is now 2 and he plays the concert DVDs for her. She loves the music and Joshua tree for me is all the more meaningful now that we listen to the album as a family and watch our daughter light up as the music begins. I've always been a fan but the music has special meaning now that my little girl sings along and gets so much joy the music. It's a special family time and I can't live without it.

Joshua Tree means growing to an adult for me, it's the college soundtrack and the emotions of first love and good friends, fun times and a bedroom full of posters and cd's. It was also the cd I would be cleaning my room to when my mum asked me :)

The Joshua Tree marks the end of an era for me because it is the last studio album by U2 that I purchased on vinyl. (I have since collected a couple of the fan club releases). Same with the 12" singles from the album, they too are my last vinyl releases. After that, everything was CD or MP3.

12/5/07 Me and 8 people from The Bolles School in Jacksonville Florida took our SAT exams and then road tripped to Tampa to see U2 at "The Big Sombrero" as it was called back in the day. I guess being 18 and on our own at a big concert out of town for the first time added to the mystic of the concert. I remember them opening with Streets I believe and the entire crowd was just blown away start to finish!.. It set the standard for what I think of when I go to concerts. Now 30 years later, I hope to take my 13 y/o twins to a performance as they love the band like I do!..

hoping to see the concert in vancouver as this album was our favourite when it was released when I met my wife and we listened to it over and over while hanging out or sitting around with family and friends ..such an awesome album

I had my driver's license only for a few weeks and knew that on March 9th, 1987, that The Joshua Tree was going on sale. As soon as school ended, I got in my father's 1971 Duster and drove immediately to Sammy Goody's at the mall to get my copy. The sale's associate was pulling the cassettes out of the cardboard boxes to set up the wall display. She told me I was the first one to purchase the new album. Drove home as quickly as legally possible because the cassette player didn't work in the car. I put the tape in my Panasonic boom box and watched the wheels on the cassette turn and heard the opening to "Where The Streets Have No Names" and got the goosebumps. I would listen to that tape over and over for years. Whenever I listen to The Joshua Tree it is like I am transported back to high school. Every song brings back the moment in my life when I first experienced a specific song. It is timeless for me.

I had previously heard full albums, but The Joshua Tree was the first album I actively LISTENED TO in full. Headphones plugged into my walkman in the back seat of my parent's car, with the vast desert between Phoenix and Tucson acting as a visual aide to the sonic journey. Of course I knew the hits, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For and With or Without You, but it was the deep tracks like somber Running to Standstill or a song like Exit that makes you listen just a little more closely, that really stand out to me. U2 set a high bar with The Joshua Tree. Not just for song, but for a sonic experience. It's a bar that hasn't been exceeded to this day.

The rage in bullet the blue sky and the soft sadness of running to stand still will never leave my head. The uplifting sound of where the streets have no name provides personal optimism get me through the day. I think this album relates to what the world is going through and what a person is going through and that is love and war. There has never been an album like the Joshua Tree that can top singing and creating the sound of those topics.

T'was the 1st of U2's albums I got into and then I worked my way backwards from there. My brother queued up at midnight in Belfast when it was released and cites his favourite gig of theirs as the gig they did in The King's Hall in Belfast in that year with the mighty Lou Reed in support. I have some of that gig on a bootleg cassette somewhere. Incidentally I picked up a different version of the Joshua Tree off ebay recently performed by Earl Pickens and the family which is a hillbilly cover version of the entire album with the sweetest thing as a bonus track. It's top tho the original will always be my favourite and is an album that will forever be in my top 10 albums of all time. Can't wait for the Dublin gig in July! ;-)

...and I was just a middle school girl with an older brother who, a couple of weeks before, received a certain orange tape for his birthday. I never listened to U2 before but I was curious, I had to work on it a bit but in the end I managed to borrow the tape from him, so I lay on the bed, put it in my walkman (ah the 80's) and pushed play. Since my bro was obessing on the first two tracks, the very first thing I heard was With or Without You bass line, and the world literally stopped, so did my heart. Mum was talking to me about something but I could only stare at the ceiling and be stunned by the sheer perfection of that song. It was a very bad case of love at the first sigh. Or listening. Or whatever. After that day many many other U2 songs came, many tapes, vinyls, then CD and mp3's. Eventually older bro moved on to other kinds of music, mum passed away and my walkman is just a fond memory, but I still have that orange tape and "this love won't let me go". But I'm perfectly fine with it.

I didn't realize the Joshua Tree came out on March 9th, 1987. My 16th birthday was March 9th, 1987. It was such a time of excitement in my life. I remember that I instantly fell in love with With or Without You and I have vivid memories of sunbathing during spring break while listening to this song that struck deep within me. It was a time in my life where everything was good and I felt like I could conquer the world. Only two short months later on May 13th, my life changed forever when I was in a car accident with seven of my classmates from school. I was the most severely injured with a broken neck, multiple broken bones, and internal injuries. I spent three and a half months in intensive care just trying to live. My heart stopped a couple of times, I had life-threatening infections, blood clots in my lungs, and I endured surgery after surgery after surgery. I endured three and a half months in one room not being able to move because the broken neck paralyzed my body. I was on a ventilator so I was unable to talk. I would get so anxious and agitated, not being able to express what was going on in my mind or do anything I wanted to. It was a very dark time which teetered between life and death--literally. One of my friends bought me The Joshua Tree on cassette. There weren't many things that would calm me or relax me while I was in ICU. People rubbing my hands and feet, the occasional dose of Valium, and the Joshua Tree brought that relief. I would listen to the album over and over, escaping the hell that I was living, if just for a moment. I would get lost in the music. It was freeing. I made it out of the hospital six and a half months from the time I went in. I have had a wonderful life and accomplish many things, paralyzed and all! To this day, With or Without You is my all-time favorite number one song. Everytime I hear it, it takes me back to the time before my life changed...back to the time when I was 16 years old, sunbathing during spring break, when I could feel like I could conquer the world. It takes me back to a time of Innocence...

How can simple words describe something so important? This album has been part of the best times in my life, and helped me survive the worst parts. Every single time I listen to it, I feel as if my whole being has just taken a giant cleansing breath. I even named my son Joshua :)

On 9th March 1987 I started a new job with the Leeds Permanent Building Society. The first day was at the training centre below the branch in London's Regent Street, start time was 9am. The famous Tower Records opened at 9am but I was professional and agonisingly I got off the tube at Piccadilly Circus, passed the record store and got to my new job in good time. At lunchtime, instead of mingling with my new colleagues I ran to Tower Records, about 200 metres away and bought the Joshua Tree on vinyl and cassette. The agony continued as I had to wait until 5pm to leave work and get home at 6pm. When I back to work I was asked what was in my bag and I explained all to a group that had never heard of U2. Why both vinyl & cassette? The record player was downstairs and the cassette player was in my room. In today's digital world it seems hard to believe but I needed to listen to that record wherever I was. The first play was magical and I thought then it was the finest record I had ever listened to. That view hasn't changed in the intervening years. My favourite track was 'Running to Stand Still' and I was gutted that it was never released as a single in the U.K. However, every track is a winner and although it was a big change from 'Out of Control' '11 O'Clock' and 'I Will Follow' my previous favourite U2 tracks the sheer quality blew me away. I was 23 years old and had got into U2 after the October album. The first time I saw the boys live was nearly 4 years earlier in December 1983 at the Apollo Victoria in London. My sister had read in the NME about a show for CND mixing comedians, actors and music. There was no confirmation that U2 would appear but we got tickets and I remember the likes of Elvis Costello, Style Council, Roman Atkinson but it got to around 11pm and we had to leave to get the last tube back to Wood Green where we lived. It was a Sunday night, I had work in the morning and I was far too sensible for my age. Should I leave? There was still no confirmation that U2 would turn up. My sister and friends were staying and although uncomfortable I decided to stay. I think it was past midnight when the boys took the stage, I reckon there was only about 50 or so left in the audience and the intro to 'I Will Follow' started, for me the greatest live song ever! It was the day after the Harrods bombing and rumour said that's why they decided to appear. Probably the greatest night of my life, it must only have been 6 or 7 songs, one with Mike Peters of the Alarm and it ended as always with '40'. The whole show was filmed for either TV or video release but never ever appeared. Part of me was gutted by this but then again my haircut and choice of clothes would probably have shamed me for years to come. I last saw U2 at the O2 on the last tour, when Bono said 'And this is Gloria...' it brought a tear to my eye, a bit like the old days. I can't wait for Twickenham on 8th July! Since 'The Joshua Tree' my career with the Leeds developed to bank manager & beyond. I got married, had 3 kids and got divorced. The one constant in my life has been the boys from my mother's home City. My mum's from Cabra, a couple of miles from Cedarwood Road.