Efes Pilsen One Love Festivali 5, Istanbul, Turkey
PanicMorrissey rewarded Istanbul's long and patient wait for him to visit their country with a great performance. He kept smiling between the songs, was quite chatty and often thanked the audience for being there. The crowd was extremely receptive and energetic and sang along to all the songs. They also often went into chants of their idol's name.
First Of The Gang To Die
The Youngest Was The Most Loved
In The Future When All's Well
To Me You Are A Work Of Art
Girlfriend In A Coma
Let Me Kiss You
Still Ill
You Have Killed Me
Life Is A Pigsty
Trouble Loves Me
I Will See You In Far Off Places
At Last I Am Born
I'll Never Be Anybody's Hero Now
I Just Want To See The Boy Happy
How Soon Is Now?
/Irish Blood, English Heart
For the first time on this summer's festival circuit Morrissey could play for more than one hour, and included an encore in his performance. This made it possible for songs like "To Me You Are A Work Of Art", "Still Ill", "Life Is A Pigsty" and "Trouble Loves Me" to return into the set. The latter song had actually not been performed for over a month. However, the lesser known "Ganglord" was not played.
Morrissey made special efforts to reach out to the Turkish. After the traditional bow alongside his musicians at the front of the stage, he greeted the fans with "Merhaba... Zeki Muren... Mo-rri-seyy". The first word is Turkish for "Hello", then Zeki Muren is the name of a flamboyant Turkish singer. His own name was pronounced with a Turkish accent, echoing the shouts that came from the audience. If Morrissey had any doubts about having a fanbase in Turkey, he must have been happy to see all the fans singing along with him. This must have prompted his comment before "In The Future When All's Well": "Some of you must know 'Ringleader Of The Tormentors'... Why? I'm surprised..." As an introduction to "To Me You Are A Work Of Art" he interrupted a chant of his name to say "So to me you are yummy yummy-yummy... to me you are eye-candy... to me you are grrr... a work of art".
After the latter song Morrissey proceeded with the band introduction: "Say hello to Boz Boorer... to Gary Day... to the great Matt Walker... he his from Mexico, Jesse Tobias... he his from Cleveland, Ahh... Michael Farrell... and me, well... I am nobody, nobody..." Morrissey also adapted a few song lines to the locals. In "Let Me Kiss You" he changed the lyrics to "I've zigzagged all over Istanbul..." Because there were also many fans from Israel in the audience he asked before going into "Still Ill" if they knew an Israeli actor he was fond of: "Do you know Lior Ashkenazi? No? Yes? Who is Lior Ashkenazi?" but he never got a satisfying answer. In the latter song, just like he did in the days of the Smiths, he lied on the floor and rolled on his back. "You Have Killed Me" was introduced with the words "Happily, you have killed me".
Before "I Will See You In Far Off Places" Morrissey had a round of thanks: "Thank you to our friend who came from England and Italy... but mostly for our friends who came from Istanbul". This of course got a good cheer out of the audience. Returning to perform the encore after taking a short break, Morrissey and his musicians got again into a line and bowed. Surprisingly guitarist Jesse took the microphone and said something that ended in "...gracias". The band then closed the set with a very powerful "Irish Blood, English Heart".
The concert was recorded by Turkey's Channel D Plus. The first five songs were to be broadcast, but this never happened.
This concert is not circulated on bootlegs at this point in time. However an impressive number of cellphone videos can be found in many places on the internet. There are so many that one could almost collect them all and reconstruct the whole concert like a puzzle.
Do you have information about this concert? Or do you own an uncirculated recording of it? If yes please contribute and get credited.