Hard to believe but true: in late October 1980, an album called Boy was released by a little known band from Dublin. The rest, as they say, is history.

Never heard Boy ? If you've been to a show on Vertigo '05 you'll have caught some choice cuts. The band are playing more from their debut album than for many a year: I Will Follow, An Cat Dubh, Out Of Control, The Ocean, The Electric Co....

You can hear clips from every track on Boy in our albums area. Subscribers to U2.Com can listen to the whole of each track.

In fact our Boy era pages offer some cool historical notes on U2's first album, including some interesting comments from the band's original - and most recent - producer Steve Lillywhite, on some of those strange effects in I Will Follow.

'All the silly noises on I Will Follow in the middle section, me and Bono...I'll always remember this...Bono was breaking bottles in the back and I had a push-bike upside down on its saddle, turning the wheels and running a knife along the spokes...'

They don't make them like that anymore.

And if you want to see what U2 looked and played like in 1980, check out our video clip of I Will Follow