22 July 2006
Benicàssim Festival, Spain

Panic
Irish Blood, English Heart
The Youngest Was The Most Loved
You Have Killed Me
Still Ill
First Of The Gang To Die
I'll Never Be Anybody's Hero Now
Girlfriend In A Coma
Let Me Kiss You
Ganglord
I Will See You In Far Off Places
To Me You Are A Work Of Art
I Just Want To See The Boy Happy
How Soon Is Now?
Trouble Loves Me
At Last I Am Born
Life Is A Pigsty
This was a typical festival appearance and not the highlight of the festival season of 2006. The Morrissey fans were receptive but the audience included many non-fans as well. Morrissey still appeared to be quite satisfied with the Spanish welcome, gave an excellent performance and seemed to enjoy himself quite a lot.

Setlist-wise "In The Future When All's Well" and "Human Being" were dropped and replaced by "At Last I Am Born".

Morrissey entered stage followed by his musicians and together they formed a line at the front and bowed before everybody took their respective position on stage. Morrissey walked left and right, sized up his audience, then greeted it with "How. Do. You. Do?" After "Irish Blood, English Heart" he echoed the crowd chanting his name with his own: "Thank you-hou! Thank you-hou! Thank you-hou!" After "The Youngest Was The Most Loved" he said "Thank you for turning up this year... very good of you!"

Morrissey changed the first line in "You Have Killed Me" to "Pasolini is me maybe, and Fellini I'll be one day". After the song he answered someone in the audience: "I agree completely..." then introduced the Smiths-era classic "Still Ill" with "This is for all of you who have one or two strands of (whispers) grey hair, which is most of you!" After the song the audience chanted Morrissey's name again, and this time the man sang along with his own "España! España!" After "First Of The Gang To Die" he said "Not well? Julia, I know everybody's name: Juan! Juan! Juan! Juan! Juan-Juan-Juan!" then dedicated "I'll Never Be Anybody's Hero Now" with the line "This song is for Syd Barrett... we remember, we remember..." As he sang that number's opening line "Warm lights from the grand houses blind me", he shielded his eyes because he was actually being blinded, but by the setting sun.

After the latter song Morrissey had the traditional word about his latest album's chart performance: "I was - what's that noise... Oh it's me! - I was very pleased, believe it or not, to hear that 'Ringleader Of The Tormentors' reached no 46 in the Spanish charts (cheers)... Well, for anybody else of course this is crap... but for me, it's bliss, so thank you!" Before "Let Me Kiss You" he exclaimed "Wow somebody screamed! Sorry Julia, that was me being silly, I think, me being silly... silly, silly..." Near the end of the song, as he went "you see someone that you physically despise", he tore his shirt open to loud screams from the audience. Then during the song's instrumental outro, he removed the shirt, wiped his chest and down his trousers with it and threw it into the crowd.

After "Ganglord" Morrissey exchanged a few words with someone in the audience: "Say that very nicely... well, there's lots of medications available for such things." He then immediately moved on to the introduction of the song played before and the next one on the setlist: "That song was called 'Ganglord' and... ga-ga-ga-ga-ga... and this song is 'I Will See You In Far Off Places'." As the first notes of the latter title were heard, he added "...music lovers!" His next intervention was also a song introduction: "This is, this song is called 'To Me You Are A Work Of Art' and I don't mean Whistler's Mother (not leaving enough time for the audience to react) Julia, they don't know Whistler's Mother... isn't that terrible? Spanish education, they don't know Whistler's Mother, aaah!" After the song, sensing that he might have been too harsh, Morrissey returned to the subject "Anyway, Whistler's Mother was just some old bag who sat in a chair, really so, not very important, so please don't worry about it, I beg you, I beg you..."

Morrissey wrapped a Spanish flag around his waist and legs during "How Soon In Now?" He changed a line in that song to "And look at me, all my hope is gone". During the intro to the following song "Trouble Loves Me", he removed the flag from his waist and let it hang over his head. As was customary on this tour, the latter title was extended with a few instrumental bars from a well known local song played on the piano. The Spanish intro on this date has yet to be identified (Spanish fans please write in!). In "Trouble Loves Me" itself, Morrissey changed a line to "It seeks and finds me and why?, to charlatanize me..."

Before going into "At Last I Am Born" Morrissey teasingly said "I suppose by now most of you smell quite badly... yeah? I thought so! It's not me!" In the latter song Morrissey changed the emphasis of a line by singing "At last I am born I think! I'm living the one true free life". After that he said something in Spanish then started "We would like to..." He was interrupted by someone with a special request "Give me what? Give me your vest? I don't wear a vest..." He then moved on to his final salutation "Thank you for listening... we will do one more song and we will leave you in the darkness (crowd boos)... well, nothing to do with me! But thank you anyway, and ciao-ciao, and God bless..." During the extended outro to set closer "Life Is A Pigsty" he left the stage first, followed by his musicians one by one, leaving Michael alone to play "Auld Lang Syne" on the piano. Before bassist Gary left the stage, he picked up the Spanish flag Morrissey had worn earlier, stretched it over his head, then threw it into the audience.

The full concert minus "I'll Never Be Anybody's Hero Now", "Girlfriend In A Coma", "I Just Want To See The Boy Happy" and the first half of "How Soon Is Now?" was shown on Spain's TVE2 television network. The full concert minus the intro to "Panic" was also broadcast on Spain's Radio 3 FM.

 


The television broadcast mentioned above is circulated on bootleg DVDs. However, it lacks three and a half songs and a DJ comments every number like a sports commentator would. Collectors in search of the near-full concert without DJ intervention but without most of "A Last I Am Born" might be interested in an audience video recording (taper:JLW). The footage is from one angle only and the quality is obviously not as good as that of the television broadcast, but still quite good for an audience bootleg. The recording is overall reasonably steady, clear, features nice close-ups and is not ruined by annoying DJ comments.

The radio broadcast is also circulated on audio bootlegs. The complete set is featured minus the intro to "Panic", but unfortunately this one also has an annoying DJ talking between songs, and sometimes also over the intro of certain numbers. Collectors should be aware than two different versions of this is circulated on the internet. One sounds quite good like radio broadcasts should, while the other is clearly subpar. The latter, sometimes seen with artwork under the title "Educación Occidental", actually sounds like a webcast passed off as a radio broadcast.

The audio was ripped from the television broadcast bootleg DVD and is circulated on the internet. The holes from the misssing non-televised songs were filled with parts of the radio broadcast. The audio from the audience video recording is apparently circulated on the internet although it features the complete "At Last I Am Born" while most of the song is missing on the audience DVDs.

 

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