This Charming Man

It all started quite well. Morrissey walked on stage, greeted the audience with the ominous line "Good evening... possibly..." then launched into set opener "This Charming Man". Some fans said that his performance looked strained during that song, while others argue that Morrissey looked fine. After he'd finished singing, as the band were ending the song, Morrissey fell out of view. People at the front said that his knees buckled and he was seen half-slumped, half-crawling on the stage. Lights went out as a few of his musicians and perhaps stage personnel rushed to carry him off stage.

The crowd at first stayed fairly calm. With Morrissey's bad record for walking off stage, many people who had not been close enough to witness his collapse assumed he had had a tantrum or something of the sort. So people further back began booing, hissing and jeering. Someone from Morrissey's stage crew came on twice, once to say they were not sure what was going on, and then 25 minutes after Morrissey's collapse to say the singer had left the building seriously ill. Many people booed, thinking Morrissey was pulling a stunt.

Television news later that evening reported that Morrissey had been hospitalised at Swindon's Great Western Hospital after collapsing on stage with breathing difficulties, and that his condition was stable. The next planned date in Bournemouth was cancelled and Morrissey resumed the tour three days later at London's Royal Albert Hall.

The planned setlist was the following: "This Charming Man", "Black Cloud", "When Last I Spoke To Carol", "How Soon Is Now?", "Ganglord", "Cemetry Gates", "I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris", "Teenage Dad On His Estate", "Nowhere Fast", "Irish Blood, English Heart", "Why Don't You Find Out For Yourself", "One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell", "Death At One's Elbow", "The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores", "Is It Really So Strange?", "The Loop", "Because Of My Poor Education", "I'm OK By Myself" and "First Of The Gang To Die".

The are no audio or video bootlegs of this concert in circulation in the bootleg trading communities at this point in time. The footage of "This Charming Man" (without Morrissey's collapse') can be viewed on Youtube.

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