The Greek, Los Angeles, CA
The Boy RacerThe final date of the first leg of the Maladjusted tour was a success. The audience was incredibly receptive, as was the norm in Southern California. They kept breaking in chants of Morrissey's name. The man himself seemed to be in an excellent mood, although perhaps slightly less talkative than he generally was at that point in time. There was a very large pit between the barrier and the stage making it very difficult for fans to reach their idol. Despite incentives from the man (like asking the fans to "come closer"), it was barely possible to even just touch Morrissey's hand when he extended it over the pit. But that changed during the encore (read further).
Alma Matters
Billy Budd
Reader Meet Author
Nobody Loves Us
Wide To Receive
Roy's Keen
Speedway
The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get
Ambitious Outsiders
Paint A Vulgar Picture
Now My Heart Is Full
/Shoplifters Of The World Unite
There were a few changes in the setlist. Standard intro "Maladjusted" as well as "Hold On To Your Friends" and "The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils" were replaced by part-timers "Nobody Loves Us", "Ambitious Outsiders" and "Wide To Receive". This would actually be the latter song's final performance on this tour. When Morrissey would resume the tour after a break of 10 days, "Wide To Receive" would be permanently dropped from the set (until 2006).
"The Boy Racer" was moved back to the position of set opener where it would find itself more and more as the tour progressed. After its performance Morrissey greeted the audience with "It's nice to be home!". A few songs later, after "Billy Budd" he added "It's very nice to be back in this very sane city". Besides the usual changes in "Nobody Loves Us", Morrissey changed a line to "I'm useless, I'm shiftless, I'm jobless, but I'm all yours". Before "Roy's Keen" he said "God bless you..." He then turned to Boz and said "Boz... Roy, Roy, Roy, Roy, Roy...", then invited the fans to "...come closer, come closer".
In "Speedway" Morrissey changed the words "loving mouth" to "ugly mouth", something common in performances of that song on the 1995 tours, but not so common on this one. After "Ambitious Outsiders", perhaps half-exasperated by many song requests shouted by members of the audience, Morrissey signed and shouted "Yes! Yes! Yes! YES! YES! YES!". Besides all the usual changes in "Paint A Vulgar Picture", Morrissey also sang "I just haven't earned it yet, baby" and "what makes most people feel happy still leads me headlong into harm".
When Morrissey returned to the stage after a short break to perform the encore, he first said "I'd just like to say thanks for all the support... it means a great deal..." before going into encore "Shoplifters Of The World Unite". However he didn't get to finish the song because there was a rush of fans who finally successfully managed to climb over the barrier and make it on stage. Morrissey had to be escorted off by security guards and his musicians just stopped playing (Spencer dropped his drumsticks in disappointment) and followed him. Obviously the stage crashers were booed by the rest of the audience for interrupting the concert. Chances are "Shoplifters Of The World Unite" was the final planned song that night, but it was rumoured that "The Queen Is Dead" was to be played as a second encore. There were also rumours that Morrissey was injured in the melée, but this wasn't the case.
A fair audience recording of the full set is circulated on bootlegs and on the internet. An alternate recording lifted from the house video feed can also be found on the internet. Because it was patched through the house system and recorded via analog, the quality is rather good, but not quite soundboard.
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