27 October 1997
Civic Arts Plaza, Thousand Oaks, CA

Maladjusted
Do Your Best And Don't Worry
Speedway
Hold On To Your Friends
Spring-Heeled Jim
Alma Matters
The Boy Racer
Now My Heart Is Full
Why Don't You Find Out For Yourself
Sunny
Ambitious Outsiders
Trouble Loves Me
The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils
/Shoplifters Of The World Unite
The Civic Arts Plaza was a rather small venue. Morrissey was visibly enjoying himself, he was playful and talkative. The audience was very responsive. Security was strict and no one made it on stage.

People who attended this concert as well as the previous one in Claremont were lucky because this one had eight songs different to the last setlist, a rare occurrence mid-tour for Morrissey. Four of these were played for the first time on this tour: "Do Your Best And Don't Worry", "Spring-Heeled Jim", "Why Don't You Find Out For Yourself" and "Trouble Loves Me". The latter song was actually seeing its live debut. "Maladjusted", "Sunny, "The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils" and "Shoplifters Of The World Unite" were the previously performed returning numbers. Of the eight songs dropped to make space for the above, only "The Queen Is Dead" would never be played again.

Entering stage Morrissey roared a greeting before going into the first song. This was one of the very few shows on this leg where "Maladjusted" was performed. As before, it was slotted as set opener, as on the album it came from. In the song Morrissey made a few lyric changes when he sang "Do you want to hear this story or not?" and "Still I maintain there's nothing wrong with me". After the song he greeted the audience once more and acknowledged the fact that many fans traveled to see him on more than one date: "Hello again... we saw you yesterday!". In the debuting "Do Your Best And Don't Worry" which came next, Morrissey made more lyric changes. He sang "this is you on a bad day, you and a sad debt", "once again you'll never win" and "the way you watch yourself" instead of "the way you hang yourself".

Morrissey then addressed his audience again: "Thank you I'm so pleased you came... it would have been terrible without you". In the debuting "Spring-Heeled Jim", Morrissey made the same changes as on the 1995 tours. He sang the more common change "As long as it's the normal thing to do" and the rarer one "take life at five times your average speed I never do". Recent single "Alma Matters" was introduced by Morrissey with the words "We recently sent this song - believe it or not - for consideration to MTV and they hated it so, nothing changes!" In the song he made the slight change of a line to "this is my life to wreck my own way!". In live performances of "The Boy Racer", Morrissey sometimes changed "I'm going to kill him" to "I'm going to tell him" but on this date he just didn't sing anything, he probably just mimed it. Also, where he usually sang "Oh no, oh no", on this date he sang "Oh no, oh yes!".

After "Now My Heart Is Full", Morrissey teased the fans by announcing "We're very happy to take requests... I don't mean songs...". In the debuting "Why Don't You Find Out For Yourself" he sang "What do you do anyway?". Since the release of "Maladjusted", "Trouble Loves Me" had become one of the fans' favourite songs on that album, so it's no surprise that when they recognised its opening notes, they cheered loudly. At some point into "The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils", Morrissey jokingly sang "To be Finnish would be a relief" instead of "To be finished would be a relief", but since the joke was probably lost on most, he then sang "To be Swedish would be a relief".

 


A fair sounding audience recording of the full set is circulated on bootlegs and on the internet. There is a second recording of this concert out there (or perhaps a better transfer of the same), but it is not widely circulated yet, and is not available on the internet.

 

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