For me I too was too young to really understand or appreciate STPs work the way it was intended for the first few years. I was only 6 or 7 when they got rolling... So I wasn't supposed to understand what they were exactly about. However after hearing them on radio for years I remember enjoying the songs... But it was 2003 when it "clicked" for me...
I was probably 17 at the moment, stumbled into a copy of core by accident(I'll save the long story for now...), and when I listened to it from from to back, it spoke exactly what I wanted to hear at that time... This timing was good and bad for me... Bad because the boys had just gotten into what would be a long hiatus... But good because it was only a month or two before "thank you" hit the stores. When I got ahold of the dvd on its release day, I'll never forget what that was like... I believe it was my first time actually seeing the guys and putting the faces with the music... I remember when I saw Trippin and big empty from rolling rock, I immediately knew this was my favorite band of all time. The stars aligned and I found what was supposed to be my favorite artist, and favorite band.
