Palladium, Hollywood, CA
You're Gonna Need Someone On Your SideMorrissey played the first of two nights in his new hometown in front of some of his wildest fans. The concert was a success, but quite violent. There was a lot of rowdiness in the front rows and a few fights broke out during the evening. There were obviously many attempts by fans to reach the stage, and one person was successful. Of course Morrissey fed off this energy and was in the best of moods. On the other hand it also distracted him from his performance and often interrupted himself to say things to people or encourage stage climbers. Aware that he had many hispanic fans in the audience he thanked them in Spanish and used lines such as "Vaya con dios!".
The Boy Racer
Alma Matters
Reader Meet Author
Is It Really So Strange?
Hairdresser On Fire
November Spawned A Monster
A Swallow On My Neck
Half A Person
Speedway
Break Up The Family
Lost
The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils
Now My Heart Is Full
Meat Is Murder
Tomorrow
/Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me
The setlist was slightly scrambled and "Lost" was reinstated.
Morrissey came on stage dressed in a black PVC suit. He quickly set the tone of the evening by chanting with the audience "Moz Angeles! Moz Angeles! Moz Angeles! Moz Angeles!... We love you... It's so nice to be back in your bosom... take us to your heart, and squeeze us!" As early as "The Boy Racer" there were stage climbing attempts. Morrissey even told someone to "take it easy". After the song came the second part of the man's greeting: "It's nice to be back in Moz Angeles... God bless Echo Park, God bless Lincoln Heights, God bless me, God bless you... God bless me... that's enough..."
After "Alma Matters" Morrissey warned "Now before all of you send swift emails to the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, I'd just like to say that this suit I'm wearing is completely PVC and the only animal which will ever get near this suit apart from me is hopefully you..." The suit was kept on for a handful of songs then Morrissey changed into something else. After "have you ever escaped from a shipwrecked life?" in "Reader Meet Author", he shouted "well have you!?" After the song he said "I hope you haven't lost your shoes or anything... the shoes are very over-rated... so am I...!
In "Is It Really So Strange?" Morrissey messed up a line and it ended up sounding like: "I say no, you say yes, whatever aargh!" After the song he mocked the chanting audience with his own "Esteban! Esteban!" After "Hairdresser On Fire" he cryptically said "Thank you, France..." Then "A Swallow On My Neck" was introduced with the line "With this next song, you shouldn't really look for any secondary meaning because... there isn't actually a first, so... there you go!" In turn "Half A Person" was introduced with "As for this next song, it's actually nothing else but secondary meaning... where..." At this point Morrissey was interrupted by a shouting fan so he asked "What'you wanna know? What do you want to know?"
After "Half A Person" Morrissey teased "You got me very aroused now... so watch it!" There were more stage-climbing attempts during "Speedway" and the singer gave short words of encouragement between lines. As the opening notes of b-side "Lost" were heard he sang "pretend that you know this song..." He slipped on flowers during "The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils" so after the song he said "You probably didn't notice but during that song I slipped on a (?) flower and almost broke my neck which... would be quite a nice way to die really... and very apt!... Nobody cares (crowd cheers its disapproval)..."
After "Meat Is Murder" Morrissey explained "So the message is: if somebody offers you some Turkey this Christmas, Just. Say. No." Apart from the usual live changes in "Tomorrow" he sang "all I ask of you is something that you shouldn't do". Before going into encore he simply said "Thank you for tonight... you're very loving, thank you!"
This concert was supposedly recorded for Spanish television although none of it has ever been broadcast.
A very good audience recording of the complete set is circulated on bootleg compact discs and in digital format on the internet.
A second audience recording is also out there, but the quality is much inferior and it stops halfway into "Now My Heart Is Full", so the end of the latter number as well as "Meat Is Murder", "Tomorrow" and "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me" are missing (recorder: Dave Hamblen). This is sometimes seen with artwork under the title "Moz Angeles". The recording is also sometimes seen circulated with the artwork of a different recording dated 16 December 1999, and titled "Hollywood Nights".
Do you have information about this concert? Or do you own an uncirculated recording of it? If yes please contribute and get credited.