Click on date for concert information:

A cameraman followed Morrissey around, shooting Morrissey and his fans. Some of the footage was used for the documentary "The Importance Of Being Morrissey" broadcast in 2003.

Personnel: Boz Boorer (guitars), Alain Whyte (guitars), Gary Day (bass) and Spike Smith (drums).

None. There might have been one unidentified artist opening in Buenos Aires.

- Olive t-shirt with yellow shirt Morrissey. View.
- Same as above, but in black, and with South American dates on back.
- Black t-shirt of Morrissey wearing pink shirt/black jacket, "MOZ ANGELES" on the back. View.
- White version of the above.
- Pillowcases with the words "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me" on them. These had an inside flap just like the ones sold in the UK had, but the photo reproduction was not as good. View.

Note: There was no merchandise for sale in Mexico and Chile, only in Argentina and Brazil.
 

The intro tape on this tour was a shorter version of the one from the recent European leg. It didn't feature Brigitte Bardot, Maya Angelou and a few others. Morrissey and the band still entered stage to John Barry's James Bond theme "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". Frank Sinatra's "My Way" was played after the concert.

Mexico: a mix of nine different backdrops, the same ones used on the two California dates that ended the recent American leg of the tour. View here. The 'Moz Angeles' one was changed to 'Morrissey'.

South America: places like Porto Alegre didn't have a backdrop, the venue might not have been able to accomodate it. In other places such as Santiago a black version of the 'Que Desmadre' backdrop was up for the second half of the concert (view in situ).

The Latin Americans were generally treated to 18 songs, one more than the usual setlists on previous legs of this tour. There was no surprises, all songs had previously been performed on the tour.

The "Viva Hate" / "Bona Drag" period was represented by regulars "November Spawned A Monster", "Hairdresser On Fire", "Break Up The Family" and "Ouija Board Ouija Board". The "Kill Uncle" album was still ignored and the much toured "Your Arsenal" was mainly represented by "Tomorrow", played on a majority of dates. "You're Gonna Need Someone On Your Side" was performed once, slotted as the opening number.

"Vauxhall & I" was the most represented album on this leg of the tour, with regulars or near-regulars "Billy Budd", the semi acoustic "Now My Heart Is Full", "I Am Hated For Loving", "Speedway" and "The More You Ignore Me The Closer I Get". The bongo version of "Boxers" was played in four cities. "Southpaw Grammar" was mostly present with "The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils" and "The Boy Racer" performed on about half of the dates and "Reader Meet Author" performed twice.

"Maladjusted" was only represented by "Alma Matters" in most places. Then "Trouble Loves Me" was added to the bill for the second half of the leg. The "Maladjusted" era's b-sides "I Can Have Both" and "Lost" (with Alain on harmonica) were played once and twice respectively for variety's sake. For the same reasons "A Swallow On My Neck" was played on and off.

Finally, five different songs from the Smiths catalogue were performed on this portion of the tour. "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me" and "Shoplifters Of The World Unite" took turns in the encore position. When both were performed on the same night (on the first half of the leg), the songs would occupy the last two spots in the setlist. "Meat Is Murder", "Is It Really So Strange?" and "Half A Person" were also regulars.

Here is the number of times each song was performed on this leg, in descending order of frequency. This is based on 8 concerts.

Billy Budd - 8
Hairdresser On Fire - 8
I Am Hated For Loving - 8
Is It Really So Strange? - 8
Meat Is Murder - 8
November Spawned A Monster - 8
Ouija Board, Ouija Board - 8
Alma Matters - 7
Break Up The Family - 7
Half A Person - 7
Now My Heart is Full - 7
Speedway - 7
The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get - 7
Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me - 6
Shoplifters Of The World Unite - 6
Tomorrow - 6
The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils - 5
A Swallow On My Neck - 4
Boxers - 4
The Boy Racer - 4
Trouble Loves Me - 4
Lost - 2
Reader Meet Author - 2
I Can Have Both - 1
You're Gonna Need Someone On Your Side - 1

Click here for more tour statistics.

Morrissey was generally more conservative with his lyric changes in Latin America. He probably thought that because of the language barrier the effect would be lost on most.

"Now My Heart Is Full" was performed in the semi-acoustic arrangement introduced earlier in the year. It started very mellow on acoustic guitar, and halfway through the band switched to a harder electric sound. The "rain-coated lovers' sisters" became brothers again although on one date they were 'hermanos'. Patrick Doonan was always the one "raised to wait" and "all-night pharmacies" were all-night chemists again. Morrissey also stopped doing "I just can't explain so why should I try to?" The only remaining previously heard lyric changes were the one from "I'm tired again - I tried again" to "I was tired again - I tried again" and "every jammy Stretford poet". On a few occasions Morrissey sang "Now this heart is full" (with finger pointing at the heart).

On the other hand "Hairdresser On Fire" was still heavily transformed. It still started with the alternate lines "Where is London, so much for London" and the other occurrence of "here is London" was replaced by "so much for London" as well. Morrissey sang "psychologically shave me", "stoned around Sloane Square", "when he said I'm gonna screw you, I felt so happy for you", "home of the crass (or flash), outrageous and free" and finally "too busy to kiss me". He also replaced "you are repressed but you're remarkably dressed, is it real?" with "you might be depressed, but you're remarkably dressed, and that's all you need" on most nights, and at least twice he took it further: "I am depressed, but I'm remarkably dressed, and that's all I need".

"The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get" was probably the most transformed song after "Hairdresser On Fire" on this tour. The performances were always very passionate and Morrissey repeatedly sang "stupid British judges", "whether you like me or do not" and "you're asking for it, and it you shall get". One line was changed to something different almost every night: "when you sleep, I will creep into your bed like bad song that you can't stand, oh, make it easy and give in, somebody let me in" or "I will creep into your bed like a sick song that you can't stand, take the easy way and give in to me" or "I will creep into your bed like a bad friend" or "please open up and let me in".

In "Break Up The Family" Morrissey always replaced "I want to see all my friends tonight" with "I want to be with my friends tonight". He also replaced "to move away from those younger years" and "...darker years" with "to move away from those awful times". "I'm in love for the first time" was changed to "I'm in love for the last time". The performances of "Meat Is Murder" were always very heartfelt and powerful. The Oye Esteban tour arrangement of this song was very dramatic. Morrissey always sang it under red spotlights, with a lot of emotion in his voice and ended it with the alternate question "And do you care how animals die?". The song was not really preceded by a speech and followed with a moral the way it had been in the USA or Europe before this.

In "Is it Really So Strange" Morrissey always changed "I found a tiny house" to "I found a modest house". He sang "Oh yes you can kick me, and you can punch me, and you can break my teeth but you won't change the way I feel" on half the dates. Later in the song he did "Oh yes you can chin me, and you can shin me, and you can even skin me" or "...later you can skin me". The title question "is it really so strange?" was sometimes followed with a shout of "yes!". The funniest change was still the one to "I lost my wig in Newport Pagnell".

In "November Spawned A Monster" Morrissey sometimes made minor changes to "You're just so ugly" (or even "I'm so ugly") and "Oh hug me, please hug me". The changes to "but she'll be walking your streets in the clothes that she went out and stole for herself" and "a symbol of where mad, mad lovers (or all mad lovers) must always draw the line" were only done now and then. The latter line was sometimes followed by something like "No thank you, no, no, no..." Morrissey never sang "could you even bear to kiss me full on the mouth or anywhere". Interestingly, on one date he introduced "No I am not a freak, what can make good of the bad that's been done", a change that would become common in the following years.

In "You're Gonna Need Someone On Your Side" the change to "Someone kindly told me that you've thrown away... every good thing in your life" remained. Morrissey didn't sing the previously heard "Oh you don't need to look so peeved" or "you're gonna need someone on your snide. In "Tomorrow" the man often replaced "something that you never do" with "something that you shouldn't do". He also replaced "I won't tell anybody" with "I won't tell anyone". The second occurrence of "through my shiftless body" was still replaced with "through this miserable body". In Spanish speaking countries (Mexico, Chile and Argentina) he often replaced every occurrence of the word "tomorrow" in that song to its Spanish translation "mañana".

In "Billy Budd" Morrissey returned to the album version's "now it's 12 years on" but on many dates he did the fairly recent change to "so what! they turned me down". The Oye Esteban tour version of "Speedway" still lacked the album version's three opening lines. The line "it won't work" was changed to "it just won't happen" and Morrissey always sang "you won't smile until this ugly mouth gets shut good and proper... Yes!". As in earlier live performances of "The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils" only the first verse was done, followed by the litany of "to be finished would be a relief", so that the song would not last 10 minutes the way it does on the album. Morrissey often changed a line to "in fact you think it's essential".

In "The Boy Racer" Morrissey still mumbled, breathed loudly or made funny noises instead of singing the line "I'm gonna kill him", except at least once when he extended the line to "he thinks he's got the whole world in his hands, and maybe he has!". He dropped the change to "I'm just too good looking" altogether. Nobody reported seeing him wave a banana at crotch level during the 'urinal' line of this song, but he did make the same move with his finger. The only constant change in "Reader Meet Author" was "you hear the way this sad voice sings". The changes to "I'd be the first away because I'm that type" and "you see no one really knows how hard I try" were not done anymore and Morrissey reverted to "the year 2000 it won't change anyone here" instead of the recently introduced "the year 2000 it hasn't changed anyone here".

Morrissey was also more conservative with "Alma Matters". The only regular change left was the one to "So, the life I have thrown away". He replaced "it's my life to ruin my own way" with "it's my life to wreck my own way" perhaps once or twice. In "Swallow On My Neck" the whole chorus was still changed to "But then you drew a swallow on my neck, there was no more to say, you drew a swallow deep and blue, and from then on I knew". Morrissey probably replaced "same old patter" with "same old chatter" only once. Near the end of "Lost" he stretched a line to "believe me I'm lost".

In "Ouija Board Ouija Board" the first or second occurrence of "would you work for me" was sometimes replaced by "would you help me". Then both occurrences of "would you help me" were replaced with "would you spin for me". Morrissey never repeated "ouija board, ouija board, ouija board" three times the way he does on the studio version. He only sang "ouija board" once at a time. He sometimes extended a line to "please hear my voice". The band always played the instrumental portion that follows the "table is rumbling" line, but Morrissey never did the vocals. He only sang "the glass is moving" and "the dark spell is weaving" and didn't spell out his name.

Just like "Ouija Board, Ouija Board", the latter part of "I Can Have Both" was only instrumental because Morrissey never sang the "I can have both, there's no need to choose" outro. The most constant change in "I Am Hated For Loving" was the one from "haunted for wanting" to "haunted for dreaming" (and once "haunted for giving"). Morrissey sometimes changed "I still don't belong" to "I just don't belong" and alternately ended those lines with "...to anyone", "...to anything" or "...to anywhere". Particularly, he kept changing the final line to something different such as "I don't want to belong to anywhere" or "I'll never belong to anything" or "I just do not belong to anywhere".

In "Boxers" Morrissey only sang once the very personal "I will return one day because of all the things that I see when my eyes close". The changes to "I wish the ground would open up and take me down" and "will time never pass for you" were dropped. In "Trouble Loves Me" Morrissey replaced "otherwise hold me" and "otherwise kill me" respectively by "oh somebody hold me" and "somebody kill me". He also sang "which is only the way it should be" in most if not all performances of the song.

At this point in time, nothing from these dates has been made available on official releases.

For this leg of the Oye Esteban tour collectors have a choice between an excellent quality television broadcast of five songs from the second Sao Paulo concert or an inferior audience recording of the complete Santiago concert. The former is often found tagged at the end of other concerts from the era. It is also found on the internet in digital format. The latter, although of inferior quality because it was not produced from a television broadcast, is still reasonable for an audience recording. Thanks to a fan, collectors also have the bonus option of getting it with the audio track replaced with the audio of a radio broadcast. So the footage of this 'restored' version is still shaky and not always on target, but the audio is excellent.

Recordings of varying quality are available for six of the eight dates of this leg. Casual fans and collectors looking for the best sounding show will want the FM broadcast of the Santiago concert. They will actually want the pre-FM audio which is also circulated, because it doesn't include the annoying 'Carolina' station identifications.

An alternate option of almost equal appeal is the soundboard recording of the Buenos Aires show. Actually the above two suggestions are not only interesting for the sound quality of the recordings, but also because they both captured really well the energy of the audience. They might be the best souvenirs of the whole Oye Esteban tour.

However the setlists for those two dates were almost the same. Therefore collectors might also be interested in inferior but still good recordings of the two Sao Paulo dates, or perhaps Mexico City where Morrissey made significant changes to the setlist. Finally what's left for completists is a subpar audience recording of the Curitiba concert. This leaves two dates which don't seem to have been bootlegged yet: Porto Alegre and Rio De Janeiro.