Omaha (NE), Orpheum Theater
The Queen Is DeadThis was a good concert. Morrissey was talkative and playful. Performance-wise he was flawless. The audience was energetic at the front but the rest of the crowd was generally passive. The venue's security was elderly and gentle and the barrier holding the fans back was easily climbable but still there were no stage attempts until the final song when Morrissey felt he had to beg for it by saying "it's almost over, so if you want to get frisky..." Then about 6 or 7 fans made it up there, sometimes with the help of Morrissey. One unexpected stage climber was a little girl aged about 8. Morrissey himself pulled her out of the crowd and held her in his arms while he finished the song. He pretended to leave backstage with her before finally handing her back to her father.
First Of The Gang To Die
The Youngest Was The Most Loved
You Have Killed Me
Disappointed
Panic
Let Me Kiss You
I Just Want To See The Boy Happy
I Will See You In Far Off Places
The National Front Disco
I've Changed My Plea To Guilty
The Boy With The Thorn In His Side
Irish Blood, English Heart
All You Need Is Me
At Last I Am Born
In The Future When All's Well
Ganglord
Life Is A Pigsty
How Soon Is Now?
Everyday Is Like Sunday
/Drive-In Saturday
/You're Gonna Need Someone On Your Side
There were a few significant changes in the setlist. "Lucky Lisp" and "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want" were temporarily dropped again. In their place Morrissey introduced "At Last I Am Born" and his cover of David Bowie's "Drive-In Saturday". The former had been a regular on the recent Tour Of The Tormentors MMVI, but it was aired here for the first time on this tour. The latter had only been done once before by Morrissey, in New-York on 29 February 2000.
After the Smiths classic "The Queen Is Dead" and the solo classic "First of the Gang to Die" Morrissey welcomed the audience with the line "Our greetings to you, the intelligentsia of Omaha! Thank you for coming here..." As some point he told the crowd that one of his icons grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska and asked if anyone could guess who it was. Someone incorrectly shouted Oscar Wilde and Morrissey went to his favourite fan Julia in the front row, handed her the microphone and asked her if she knew who he was thinking of. The answer he was looking for was Dick Cavett.
As he sang the "hang the DJ, hang the DJ" chorus in "Panic" Morrissey made a noose out of the microphone cord and swung it around. Soon after he introduced his musicians as was tradition at the time. He made quite a few changes in his cover of David Bowie's "Drive-In Saturday". The most notable ones were "When people stared in David Johansen's eyes and scored" and "she'd sigh like Chris the Wonder Kid". He didn't make the change from "cursing at the Astronette" to "cursing at the internet" as he had done the first time he did the song in 2000.
A recording of "The Boy With The Thorn In His Side" from this date was released in 2008 as a b-side on the first of two different 7" singles for "That's How People Grow Up". A few months later a recording of "Drive-In Saturday" from this date was released as a b-side on the first of two 7" singles for "All You Need Is Me". The latter was collected in 2009 on the b-sides anthology titled "Swords".
Nothing from this date is available on bootlegs at this point in time.
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