House Of Blues, Las Vegas, NV
You're Gonna Need Someone On Your SideThe first of two consecutive Las Vegas dates went down well overall, but was marred by minor sound problems that seemed to bother Morrissey more than anyone else. The man still seemed to be in good spirits, but he was often distracted by fans trying to make it on stage, so he often stopped singing and talked to people during songs. Quite a few fans were successful in their attempts to make it up to their idol despite the height and distance of the stage. There were no planned changes in the setlist, however "Lost" - which was slotted after "Break Up The Family" - was skipped.
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
The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils
Now My Heart Is Full
Meat Is Murder
Tomorrow
/Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me
As he entered stage dressed in his black PVC suit Morrissey greeted the audience with the line "Welcome to Lost Vegas! My name is Macbeth!... and I'll take you all..." After the opening pair of "You're Gonna Need Someone On Your Side" and "The Boy Racer" came the second part of his greeting: "Welcome to our little English show... we're very pleased that you're here... even you..." Following "Alma Matters" Morrissey started "Now because there's always someone somewhere with a big nose who knows, I have to say..." which got a big reaction out of the crowd who probably thought he was going to do "Bigmouth Strikes Again". But his intention was of another nature: "...I have to make a tedious statement and say that this suit is PVC and the only throbbing beast to ever come near this suit so far is me and (crowd cheers)... knowing my luck of course that's the way it will stay but... could be worse!"
Over the opening bars of "Reader Meet Author" Morrissey said "No good..." then followed the song's opening line ("you don't know a thing about their lives") with the question "do you?". After "Hairdresser On Fire" he told someone "This is for me? I'll take it... thank you..." then apologised "I'm sorry you're so far away, it's very strange... it's actually throwing me slightly, 'cause it seems as if you're down the hall somewhere, it's so bright here as well, it's like singing in a pub somewhere. Moan, moan, moan, moan, moan.... I'm good at that..." At this point someone tried to get on stage and Morrissey encouraged the fan by saying "Stretch!", "well hello" and "nice try!" After "November Spawned A Monster" he said "For half a song it wasn't too bad..." There were more attempts to get on stage during "A Swallow On My Neck" and this prompted him to sing "he drew a swallow deep and blue and dive, dive, boy..." He repeated "dive, dive, dive, boy!..." again further into the song. After the song he interrupted a chant of his name to lead the audience into a chant of "Mexico! Mexico! Mexico! Mexico!", which was followed by the comment "That's the only Mexican word I know... it's a good one though... alright..."
Seeing the number of people trying to get on stage, halfway into "Speedway" Morrissey said "Yes boy!" and "I can't grab all of you! I'm only small..." After "Break Up The Family" he had to complain some more: "Nothing's working tonight (long pause)... Can you stand any more? (crowd: yes!) Can you hear everything okay? (crowd: yes!)... I think the fuzz are watching us... which is very nice, I feel very safe..." During the "to be finished would be a relief" part in "The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils" he constantly talked to people trying to get on stage and shouted things like "I tried!", "compadre!", "I'm trying, I'm trying, there's only one of me!", all over Alain's backup vocals, which made this part very confusing to listen to. After the song Morrissey told the audience "Sorry, somebody's trying to give me an important message. What do you mean?... Uh?... That's your daughter? That's your wife!? (giggling) Oh, forget it! Forget everything!"
Between two lines at the beginning of "Now My Heart Is Full" Morrissey giggled and half-sang-half-said "something's going wrong..." Further into that number he told someone "you're very brave!" At the end of the song he announced "Whoever gets the t-shirt gets me!... Sorry about that... (long pause) I'm just curious to know, who got the t-shirt?... Oh nobody, oh God... typical..." Following a very powerful performance of "Meat Is Murder" he said "And of course, tonight's moral is: next time someone offers you a sausage, just-say-no!" He then asked someone "Why is your voice so high?" When he returned to the stage for the encore his parting words were "Thank you for being so gracious and not being too critical..." The show ended abruptly halfway into encore "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me" when someone accidentally knocked Morrissey's microphone out of his hands and he left the stage.
There are two different good audience recordings of the complete set circulated on bootlegs. The better of the two is the one recorded by JLW. The other one was recorded by Dave Hamblen. It is more common and is sometimes seen with artwork under the title "Lost Vegas".
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