28 March 2000
Estadio Victor Jara, Santiago, Chile

Hairdresser On Fire
Alma Matters
Ouija Board, Ouija Board
Now My Heart Is Full
The Boy Racer
Is It Really So Strange?
The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get
I Am Hated For Loving
Speedway
Meat Is Murder
November Spawned A Monster
The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils
Billy Budd
Half A Person
Break Up The Family
Tomorrow
Shoplifters Of The World Unite
/Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me
This was a fantastic concert. The crowd was ecstatic, fans kept cheering their hero and they sang along to every word. The only downside was the sound problems experienced during certain songs. No one made it on stage because of strict security. As on the previous date in Mexico, Morrissey must have felt really welcome. He was very talkative and often thanked his fans in Spanish.

Setlist-wise "Boxers" and the lesser known "A Swallow On My Neck" were dropped and replaced by two more songs from "Vauxhall & I": "The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get" and "Speedway".

As he entered stage at the end of the James Bond theme intro Morrissey greeted the audience with "All my Chilean children!". After the first song he extended it with "Welcome to Santiago's biggest toilet... drinking and smoking tonight are essential..." The latter negative comment must have been one about the rundown condition of the venue, but sensing that he might be misinterpreted, he added "No jokes... no more jokes for me..." Before going into "Ouija Board, Ouija Board" he said "I would like to say another hello to you after all these years... and I'd like to say hello to Julia, after all these days... Julia's here, I'm here, you're here, we're all here... so... Boz... Boz is here..." After the song the loud "Morrissey! Morrissey!" chant started by the fans was echoed by Morrissey with his own "Chile! Chile!". He then enquired "I don't smoke, but does anybody have a cigarette? No?... Good, because I don't smoke..."

In "Now My Heart Is Full" Morrissey adapted a few lines to the local audience and sang "just some rain coated lover's hermanos" and "every Santiago poet". After the song he picked up a fanmade banner saying "NOW OUR HEARTS ARE FULL - MORRISSEY IN CHILE" and held it over his head so everyone in the audience could see it. After "The Boy Racer" he said "I'm glad you know these songs because I thought some of you might think it's Simply Red... it's not Simply Red... you don't like Simply Red..." After "Is It Really So Strange?" the audience went into another chant of "Morrissey! Morrissey!" and this time the object of the singalong teasingly echoed it with "Peru! Peru!... yeah... what does Peru mean?... no, not Peru... not Mexico, no!"

In "The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get" Morrissey strained his voice more and more as the song went on. This might have been due to sound difficulties, or perhaps frustration, given the tone of the lyrical changes "I bear more grudges than stupid British judges" or "I will creep into your bed like a sick song that you can't stand, take the easy way and give in to me". After the song he asked "Yes? What do you need to say? (extends microphone to someone) Speak to me please!".

Before going into "Speeway" Morrissey asked someone in the audience "Do you need some water?" as he handed them one of his bottles. He then imitated some fan(s) in a high-pitched voice by screaming "Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!" and, as the song was about to start, had a countdown in a mock-orgasm voice! At one point into the song he laughed - in a forced 'I mean it!' way - instead of singing some of the words. "Meat Is Murder" was introduced with the line "This song is about blood culture, blood culture, the culture of blood, flesh, flesh, flesh, blood culture, oooh...". It ended with a single drum pounding like a dying hearbeat and, unlike other dates from that period in time, wasn't followed by a moral.

As he was about to go into "November Spawned A Monster" Morrissey asked someone "What did you say?". In Latin America Morrissey was generally more conservative with his lyric changes, but this didn't stop him from introducing the previously unheard "No I'm not a freak, what can make good of the bad that's been done" line. The latter change would become standard over the following few tours. There were significant sound problems during the song. Morrissey looked at both Boz and Alain, trying to figure out the problem, then apologised to the fans: "I don't think we were tuned for that song so... If anybody was offended, I'm sorry..."

At the very beginning of "Billy Budd" the back curtain fell down to reveal the "ĦQue Desmadre!" backdrop (view here). There were a few sound drops during that song's first few lines. Halfway into it Morrissey teasingly sang "I took my job application into town, do you want to go home to bed?" which might have hinted that the fans looked bored. They might have been jumping less, but the song was still rapturously received. Morrissey echoed the sample at the end of the latter song with the question "Don't leave us in the dark, what does that mean, I don't know..." He then acknowledged the sound difficulties by saying "My microphone's fading, but I'm not fading..." He then started "Just before you go home to bed, just let me say..." but never finished his line.

After "Half A Person" Morrissey teased the audience with "Do you want to go home? (crowd: NO!) Well you might have to... (crowd: NO!) YES! (crowd: NO!) SI! (crowd: NO!)..." Besides the usual live changes in "Break Up The Family" he teasingly sang "I want to sleep with my friends tonight". After the song he joined his fans into the "Morrissey!" chant, all the way into the first bars of "Tomorrow" which then set the rhythm of the chant. The latter song was retitled "Mañana" in Chile as it had been in Mexico and Southern California earlier.

Before "Shoplifters Of The World Unite" Morrissey threw his sweat-drenched t-shirt into the audience and joked "Do you know how much this costs? Very expensive!". He returned for the encore dressed in his vintage sailor suit.

This concert was recorded and the complete set minus the botched "November Spawned A Monster" was broadcast on Santiago's Radio Carolina. It is unknown whether or not the show was filmed in full, but "Alma Matters" was shown on Chilean music channel ViaX at some point.

 


The Radio Carolina recording (mentioned above) of this concert might be the best souvenir of the Latin American leg of the Oye Esteban tour, perhaps of the whole tour. Morrissey was as much or even more playful than he had been on previous dates and the crowd was very appreciative and vocal. Being a FM broadcast, the recording's quality is excellent, but is also captured very well the crowd's enthusiasm, it gives the listeners the impression that they are in the venue with the Chilean fans.

The only downside is that because of the sound problems "November Spawned A Monster" was not broadcast. The FM recording is very commonly available on bootleg compact discs and in digital format on the internet. Fans and collectors should especially look out for a pre-FM version of this recording. This copy of the cd that was used by Radio Carolina for broadcast also excludes "November Spawned A Monster" but it is free of any annoying station identification.

Fanmade artwork was produced for the above audio bootlegs, with the titles "Mañana In Chile", "Senator For Life" and "Live In Chile". The latter title is also available with this alternate artwork.

An audience video recording of the complete concert - including "November Spawned A Monster" - is circulated on bootleg DVDs. This is available with the original audio or in 'remastered' form with the pre-FM soundboard recording mentioned above dubbed over. Tagged at the end is someone else's footage from a different angle: the first three songs plus "The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get" from the back balconies, then "Is It Really So Strange?", "The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get" and "Speedway" from the left balcony.

"Alma Matters" from the ViaX television broadcast mentioned above is found on DVD bootlegs featuring other material from the era.

 

Do you have information about this concert? Or do you own an uncirculated recording of it? If yes please contribute and get credited.