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22 August 2006 Marley Park, Dublin, Ireland
PanicThis concert started out on a great note, the Dublin crowd was really up for it, but things could have gone pear-shaped. Morrissey was at first in great form, very chatty and playful. Three quarters into the show an incident with brutal security provoked the interruption of a song's performance (read further) and this left Morrissey upset and from that point on, he seemed to be going through the motions. Throughout the show Morrissey threw a total of five shirts into the crowd, possibly a record. The setlist featured a near-record total of 20 songs. Most of what Morrissey was playing at this point in time was played on this date, including "If You Don't Like Me, Don't Look At Me" and "Human Being" which were added to the previous date's setlist. "To Me You Are A Work Of Art" was replaced by "I'll Never Be Anybody's Hero Now". Morrissey entered stage with his musicians and together they formed a line and bowed before everyone took their respective position. Morrissey then picked up the microphone and greeted the crowd with "The black horizon, the lowering clouds... this must be Dublin!" After set opener "Panic" he thanked the audience and said "You're bigger than I expected!" After "First Of The Gang To Die" he said "We hope you can stand the pace and... I really think we should expect rain, I think so (crowd reacts)... well, don't look at me!" After "The Youngest Was The Most Loved" Morrissey returned to the subject of the turnout: "You're very gracious... I was extremely nervous when I arrived here today and there was seven people in the audience..." Fans shouted replies to this, prompting Morrissey to enquire "Where do you come from? Terenure?" Soon after "Girlfriend In A Coma" was introduced with the line "Suddenly of course, no matter where you go to in life, and how quickly you move, suddenly the heart lurches backwards and..." Morrissey's newest single was introduced with the following long rant: "Now yesterday for those millions who care, we released our new single (cheers)... and of course today that single in Dublin record shops is nowhere to be found... and this is not because they've sold out, it's because they've never ordered them... but there's always something to complain about in the uncooperative world... however we can only dream, Julia knows it, I know it, in the future, when all's well..." A line in that song was changed to "Everyday I play a stupid game called..." Morrissey namechecked his favourite fan again by singing "I think you with all of my heart, Julia" and sang "Lee, anybody, stand up and defend me". Finally near the end he sang "The future is ended by a long, long sleep, thank God!" Morrissey went into another long rant before "Don't Make Fun Of Daddy's Voice", but this time it was a more positive one: "If I may, I would like to thank the Irish writer, God, I think her name is Siobhán Kane... is that anybody you know about? No? Well in the newspaper, the event paper-magazine-thing, you know the thing is always free, to people who don't want it... and she wrote something really beautiful, and about me, amazingly and... the extraordinary thing was is that somebody had actually written about me in an Irish publication (giggles)... Amazing! The world is changing!" After the song he replied to someone's comment with the sarcastic "Funny..." In "If You Don't Like Me, Don't Look At Me", Morrissey replied to his own line "See if I care, see if I care, see if I care" with "...I do". After the song came the customary band introduction: "The musicians who were press-ganged and dragooned to be on this stage, they have no choice: the very mellow Boz Boorer... the three and only and never lonely, Gary Day... it's very musical, things!... our gong-lord Matt Walker... the lovely but used Jesse Tobias... and last, and by all means least, Michael Farrell... and I sleep standing up. However I make myself happy with one piece of knowledge... it's this... do you mind if I tell you? I'm the world's best loser... you agree?" He corrected himself after the next song "I'll Never Be Anybody's Hero Now" when he said "I apologise because I meant to say the world's fastest loser, not the world's best loser... and there's a very marked difference I think, but we won't go into that now... Jesse!" After "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before" there was another shirt change. Again the sweaty one was disposed of in the audience and Morrissey temporarily left backstage to slip into a fresh one. When he returned he quipped "I want those shirts back, pressed, drycleaned". At the very end of "Human Being" he exclaimed "Sweet Jesus I'm a human being..." He then said "One day you'll (undecipherable)", and joked "Can you bear some more? (crowd cheers) Somebody at the back said no... bye!" During the beautiful bridge in "We'll Let You Know", as Boz was playing the flute and Michael created radio airwave noises, Morrissey picked up the end of Gary's double bass and together they carried it around as if it was a coffin. Before going into "Irish Blood, English Heart", Morrissey announced "I must confess to you that we drove through Harold's Cross today... and everybody looked completely mad (giggles)... I'm sorry!" After that song there was another shirt change and on his way backstage Morrissey said in Boz's microphone "Boz will now tell you a joke". Boz started "A funny thing happened on the way to the gig..." This may have been in reference to Morrissey's Harold's Cross comment. This is where things could have gone very bad. "Irish Blood, English Heart" seemed to have provoked the fervour of the home crowd. Into the second verse of "Ganglord" some fan unsuccessfully tried to get on stage and was given a very rough time by security. Morrissey reached out to him, acknowledged his efforts with "God bless you" and was horrified to see him getting roughly pulled away. He shouted "easy boys, easy boys, easy boys... easy for God's sake!" to security. They didn't mellow down and Morrissey looked shocked, he shook his head and stopped singing, keeping an eye on the situation. Boz and Gary came to the edge of the stage to see what was going on, then the whole band stopped completely. Morrissey asked the bouncers again "Steady, steady, steady... steady boys, steady boys" and told the fan "thanks for trying". He then composed himself and asked "Should we begin again?". He got a resounding round of cheers so he said "okay" and the band restarted the song. A closeup of his face onscreen showed him looking quite worried. "I Just Want To See The Boy Happy" was introduced with "This song is called 'I Just Want To See Myself Happy'... hmm shit, no it isn't... it's called 'I Just Want To See The Boy Happy'... however on second thoughts, well, life is short..." Just before saying that he'd just had a word with his musicians and that is very likely when he told them that they had reached their curfew of 10:30. Instead of dropping material from the setlist, Morrissey decided that they would sprint through the remaining planned setlist and not take a pre-encore break. So after "Life Is A Pigsty" and its beautiful piano outro from which emerged "Auld Lang Syne", the band segued straight into "How Soon Is Now?". At some point into "How Soon Is Now?" Morrissey commented on a HAPPINESS sign someone was holding when he asked "What's happiness? What is it?" He had used the word on the bass drum on earlier tourdates. In the song Morrissey changed a line to "you could meet somebody who actually likes you". Jesse played the final chords standing on the amp. It marked the end of the evening, after that Morrissey and his band left stage. Some fans thought they had been robbed of an encore because Morrissey was angry at security, but it wasn't the case. The full 20-song setlist, a near-record actually for Morrissey, was played in full. "Girlfriend In A Coma", "In The Future When All's Well", "Don't Make Fun Of Daddy's Voice", "Ganglord" (aborted and full), "I Will See You In Far Off Places", "At Last I Am Born", "I Just Want To See The Boy Happy", "Life Is A Pigsty" and "How Soon Is Now?" were webcast in audio form on Ireland's 2FM's webpage. Then in the summer of 2007 a different subset was broadcast on 2FM's radio: "Panic", "First Of The Gang To Die", "You Have Killed Me", "The Youngest Was The Most Loved", "Girlfriend In A Coma", "In The Future When All's Well", "Don't Make Fun Of Daddy's Voice", "If You Don't Like Me, Don't Look At Me", "Irish Blood, English Heart", "At Last I Am Born", "I Just Want To See The Boy Happy", "Life Is A Pigsty" and "How Soon Is Now?".
Both the audio webcast and radio broadcast mentioned above are circulated among collectors. The quality of the webcast is only fair, typical of webcast audio. The radio broadcast is of excellent quality, but suffers from occasional station identification. A montage of the radio and webcast audios is also out there.
Do you have information about this concert? Or do you own an uncirculated recording of it? If yes please contribute and get credited.
Quotes Morrissey, in a statement to the True To You website in September 2006: "I did not enjoy the Dublin festival as much as I'd hoped; the Point would've been better. (...) Also, at Marlay Park I had no say in the rest of the bill, yet the groups were presented on all advertising as being my special guests! Now, of course, as nice as the Magic Numbers are - and they are - my own choice of bill would have been Kristeen Young, Damien Dumpster (if he would deign), the Immediate, Sack, the Pony Club, The Seven Deadly Skins, Gaynor Tension, and Annie Balls.... I'm not saying they'd agree to take part, but I would've asked...."
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