for me it started in late 1979, maybe early 1980...
my older brother bought the Reggatta LP and then Outlandos
a friend of mine bought the next LP and we desperately wanted to see the Rockpalast gig on TV in October 1980
our parents didn't allow us to do so, that's why I don't visit them anymore...
I remember buying the German "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" single with "A Sermon" on the b-side and that's where I noticed there's stuff to collect out there
during our next holiday abroad I bought the previous singles with "Landlord" and "Visions Of The Night" on the b-side
I remember listening to "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" when they played it on German radio for the first time.
so I bought the usual teenie magazines and the singles, and then I found some cassettes with live songs and noticed how good that was as compared to the studio versions
I remember when Every Breath came out and I saw the video on German TV. If I'm not mistaken the single entered on no.7 in the UK charts and that German TV show told us about the charts the next week. The Police didn't show up from 10 to 2 and I thought "too bad that my favourite band is already gone from the Top 10" when, of course, they made no. 1 with that one!
In that year I was almost old enough to travel to a German concert, yet not quite...
in 2007 I was almost too old, but I travelled.
in between were periods where I bought bootlegs, singles from around the world, videos, posters, patches,...
and there were periods where I sold all that
and bought it back
since CD-R were possible and I had internet access interest grew back and I started burning the few live cassettes onto CD-R
finding the right covers led me to learn more about live photos (when / where they were taken)
that made me want to learn more about everything
and that's the phase I'm still in!