27 June 2004
Glastonbury Festival, Glastonbury, UK

Don't Make Fun Of Daddy's Voice
Shakespeare's Sister
How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel?
Let Me Kiss You
I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday
The Headmaster Ritual
Such A Little Thing Makes Such A Big Difference
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
First Of The Gang To Die
The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores
No One Can Hold A Candle To You
Subway Train/Everyday Is Like Sunday
Irish Blood, English Heart
This gig wasn't the biggest success of the tour. Playing festivals means performing in front of people who are not necessarily fans, they often have very different musical tastes and they sometimes have been waiting for hours in unpleasant conditions for someone else they want to see. In 2004, Morrissey performed between Supergrass and Muse, and the audience included people who had come to see dance oriented artists such as Orbital or Basement Jaxx. So the crowd was overall rather subdued and Morrissey had to deal with some heckling from impatient Muse fans, just like in Bologna two weeks earlier. The man still gave an excellent performance but he didn't communicate with the audience as much as usual. To top it off the sound wasn't the best and that also didn't help. However the reviews in the newspapers as well as on television were all very positive. Some of them said that Morrissey was the highlight of the weekend.

There were no surprises in the setlist. However probably because he was allotted only a certain amount of time Morrissey only played 13 songs. So from the recent setlists the songs "I Have Forgiven Jesus", "All The Lazy Dykes", "Rubber Ring" and "I'm Not Sorry" were not played.

There had been a rainstorm earlier in the day so after set opener "Don't Make Fun Of Daddy's Voice" Morrissey said "I know you're wet and I know you're cold so I'll sing as fast as I can..." After "How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel?" he said "Thank you everybody... or thank you some of you... thank you most of you..." Following "Let Me Kiss You" he teased the audience with "I suppose that most of you feel pretty disgusting, do you? Yeah well, believe me I feel that way every day... and I'm usually nowhere near mud... except psychologically of course..."

At some point into the show Morrissey asked if people could wait until the end of his set before overdosing. He also complained about the sound. Somewhere into "I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday" he made sure his favourite fan wasn't having too much of a hard time in the pit: "Julia, are you okay? Are you alright?" At the beginning of "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" Morrissey realised that Boz had started playing the wrong song and told him "Light Boz, Light!"

As an introduction to "First Of The Gang To Die" Morrissey used a bit of reverse psychology and announced "We have an album called 'You Are The Quarry' which I strongly advise you not to buy, and this is our new single, and it's called 'First Of The Gang To Die'. Following "No One Can Hold A Candle To You" he said "I know we do have some friends out there... twelve!" This is probably why after certain numbers such as "Everyday Is Like Sunday", instead of thanking the whole audience Morrissey simply said "thank you Julia".

Seven songs from this concert were broadcast on BBC3 television: "Don't Make Fun Of Daddy's Voice", "Shakespeare's Sister", "The Headmaster Ritual", "First Of The Gang To Die", "The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores", "Everyday Is Like Sunday" and "Irish Blood, English Heart". "Everyday Is Like Sunday" and "Irish Blood, English Heart" were later repeated on BBC2.

In parallel a 10-track subset of the show was broadcast on BBC Radio 1's "Lamacq Live" on digital satellite radio in 2007. The three songs not featured in the broadcast were "Don't Make Fun Of Daddy's Voice", "Such A Little Thing Makes Such A Big Difference" and "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out". In October 2009 four songs were broadcast in web-audio by BBC6: "Let Me Kiss You", "Don't Make Fun Of Daddy'S Voice", "Everyday Is Like Sunday" and "First Of The Gang To Die".

 


"Glastonbury", a documentary on the legendary British festival, includes Morrissey performing "First Of The Gang To Die" on this date. This was released to theaters in early 2006, and on DVD in July 2006.

 


The seven-song BBC television broadcast (see above) is commonly circulated on bootleg DVDs. The quality is obviously excellent. Some audience footage is also circulated on multi-artists bootleg DVDs of the Glastonbury Festival. The content of these and the possible availability of the songs that were not broadcast is unknown at this point in time.

The digital radio broadcast mentioned above is circulated on bootleg compact discs. It features the 10 songs that were broadcast, and is sometimes extended to 11 songs with the television audio of "Don't Make Fun Of Daddy's Voice". The latter 11-track edition is sometimes seen with fanmade artwork under the title "Glastonbury 2004". This is also found on the internet, with or without the latter addition. Collectors interested in the best version possible will want the original digital radio broadcast in MP2 format.

 

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