Le Zénith, Paris, France
How Soon Is Now?Morrissey was in the best of moods and this was a great show, the reviews were mostly positive. The venue wasn't a good choice however, the sound quality was far from good. Certain pockets of fans in the crowd were appreciative and vocal but overall the audience was not the most appreciative. The majority of fans only seemed to react positively to the older numbers and most of them didn't get the humour of the priest outfit Morrissey wore for the first third of the concert. There was a barrier between them and the stage, but it was so distant that it made it difficult for people in the front rows to even just shake hands with Morrissey. After getting out of his priest outfit Morrissey then changed in different shirts, but unlike elsewhere on this tour none of them were sent into the crowd. The musicians wore kilts.
First Of The Gang To Die
November Spawned A Monster
I Like You
Bigmouth Strikes Again
Let Me Kiss You
Redondo Beach
Munich Air Disaster 1958
Rubber Ring
Irish Blood, English Heart
The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores
How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel?
The Never Played Symphonies
I Have Forgiven Jesus
Subway Train/Everyday Is Like Sunday
Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me
You Know I Couldn't Last
/There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
The French were given a 18-track setlist typical of the recent American dates. There was a balance between the very old and the very recent, with 5 Smiths songs and 2 early solo titles on one side, and on the other, 8 songs from most recent album "You Are The Quarry", 2 recent b-sides and 1 unreleased song, the cover of Patti Smith's "Redondo Beach".
As Morrissey entered stage he greeted his fans with a simple "Bonsoir!" After set opener "How Soon Is Now?" he extended it with "Thank you and welcome! Our name is Morrissey!" After "First Of The Gang To Die" he added "Merci! Welcome to our pop concert... back at the Zénith, which is a nice place, yes? (crowd cheers) Or you prefer the Olympia? (crowd: no!) No? Me neither..." Next up "I Like You" was introduced with "We are very pleased to have released 'You Are The Quarry' and... 'You Are The Quarry' and this song is called... Why? Why? 'I Like You'..."
After "I Like You" Morrissey asked someone "Yeah, is that for me? Could I bend down and pick it up?". He then asked his favourite fan "Are you okay Julia? Can you... anything great to say today?" He handed her the microphone and loudly ordered the audience to shut up. She then said that Paris was beautiful but particularly so when he was there and Morrissey replied "Thank you Julia..." He then asked another fan "Ken you're okay? Am I okay, no!" Then "Bigmouth Strikes Again" was introduced with "There's a terrible dark force, it's always behind us, thank God, and it's called the past!" After the latter number Morrissey started to say "I'm not really sure..." but the audience kept chanting his name so he imitated them by saying his name with a French accent.
After "Let Me Kiss You" Morrissey finally managed to say what he had meant to earlier: "So as I was about to say before, I'm not really sure what they were doing but I met them all one night coming from a bar called Miner and... which you don't know, no? Well I don't know why they were in there but they were, would you please say hello! to Boz Boorer... to the seven and only Gary Day... to the proud and mighty Deano... to a miracle of modern science, Jesse Tobias... to a man with his own private parts, Mikey V Farrell... and my name is Sacha Distel..." After "Redondo Beach" Morrissey answered someone's shout with "Uh? What? I hate Bush? Well it's funny you should mention that because you must have noticed that the whole world hates Bush, and also, please know, America hates Bush..."
After "Munich Air Disaster 1958" Morrissey asked the audience if they appreciated the opening act: "And we hope you've enjoyed James Maker and Noko... Yeah? Yeah you liked James Maker? What? He is a dancer? Really, could you go-go dance?" Besides a few people in the front rows the audience had actually not appreciated Maker much. After "Rubber Ring" the audience broke into another loud chant of Morrissey's name. After "Irish Blood, English Heart" the man said "Hello to everybody from (Abutol?), boo!..." Then "The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores" was introduced with "I feel that most of the time within the dreadful world of pop music I feel that people like me are fighting a losing battle because the world really is full of crashing bores!"
After the latter number Morrissey asked someone else "Is that for me? Yeah? Yeah... I'm on stage! What? (giggles) You'll never make it, but thank you!" Following "How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel?" he explained "Earlier this year I did a thing in London which is called Meltdown and I invited Sacha Distel to be a part of Meltdown and he said yes and a month later... he's dead... So... (a fan offers to replace him) Can you sing as well as Sacha Distel? What can you do then? What can you do? Yeah what? What?" After the final line "as the light fades" at the end of "The Never Played Symphonies" Morrissey added "and when the light fades, ah... peace... peace..."
Before going into "I Have Forgiven Jesus" the audience started another chant of Morrissey's name and the object of the it replied with his own "Vince Taylor! Vince Taylor! Vince Taylor!" After "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me" Morrissey mocked some shouting fans by imitating their French accent, and particularly answered someone "I cannot sing 'Zees Charming Man'..." When Morrissey and his musicians returned to the stage before the encore everyone got into a line at the front, arms around each other, and bowed before going to their respective position. At the end of his vocal part in the final song Morrissey left his musicians finish the song's extended outro while he fled backstage.
Two different audience recordings of the concert are out there. The best one, credited to Didiertoyos, features the full set and sounds rather good. The other one is uncredited and only features the first 30 minutes of the show. It sounds more muffled than the other recording, but is still listenable.
Collectors should know that the Didiertoyos recording is also circulated in 'remastered' form. As is usually the case when fans attempt to improve recordings, this version is inferior to the original because in the process of boosting the volume, some of the quality was lost. As if that wasn't enough, this version also dropped "November Spawned A Monster" and some of Morrissey's banter was trimmed out. Collectors of digital files might also like to know that the shorter uncredited recording is sometimes seen on the internet with "Redondo Beach" from another date and a few more songs taken from the Didiertoyos recording.
Do you have information about this concert? Or do you own an uncirculated recording of it? If yes please contribute and get credited.