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The tradition of coming on stage with a flower or plant hanging from his crotch zipper had been dropped by Morrissey somewhere into the previous leg of this tour. However he still teasingly left his fly slightly undone.

Personnel: Boz Boorer (guitars) , Jesse Tobias (guitars), Gary Day (bass), Dean Butterworth (drums) and Mike Farrell (keyboards). Morrissey's regular guitarist Alain Whyte was still on break.

The Dead 60s, except in Reading and Leeds because those were festival appearances. In Reading Morrissey played after the Libertines and before the White Stripes.

Exact information is needed. The merchandise must have been similar to what was sold on the previous and following legs of this tour.

Exact information is needed. The music selection must have been similar to that of the previous leg of the tour.
The following songs are confirmed:
Serge Gainsbourg - "Initiales B.B."
Nancy Sinatra - "Let Me Kiss You"
T-Rex - "The Groover"
Pony Club - "Single"
Jobriath - "Morning Starship", and maybe "I'm A Man"
James Maker - "Born That Way"
Sack - "Colorado Springs"
Matt Monro - "Charade"
Petula Clark - "I Who Have Nothing"
Procol Harum - "Conquistador" (live)
There might have been a New York Dolls song in there as well.
Morrissey still entered stage following "The Imperfect List" by Big Hard Excellent Fish and Frank Sinatra's "My Way" was the standard soundtrack while fans exited the venue.

Nine very tall letters spelling out Morrissey's name, disposed in an arc at the back of the stage. The letters had light bulbs on them. The visual result was very impressive and reminiscent of Elvis' Comeback Special (view). In Paisley and Perth the letters were not put up because the stage wasn't large enough.

The standard setlist length on this portion of the 2004 tour was 17 songs. There was much more variety and setlist changes than usual, as the songs were selected from a pool of 24 titles.

The highlight of this period was the live introduction of the classic "How Soon Is Now?" which had never been done live by Morrissey without the Smiths. It was debuted in Reading at the same time as "You Know It Couldn't Last" and "Munich Air Disaster 1958". The latter was at that point in time only a b-side so, considering it was also a slow number, it was never the high point of the shows. The former was before this leg one of only two songs from newest album "You Are The Quarry" to have never been done live. So this left "Come Back To Camden" as the only song from the latter album never to have been played on a stage. "November Spawned A Monster" was also added to the setlist in Reading for the first time in 2004, but the song had often been performed by Morrissey on many previous tours.

So besides "You Know It Couldn't Last" the "You Are The Quarry" album was also represented by regulars "First Of The Gang To Die", "Irish Blood, English Heart", "Let Me Kiss You" and "I Like You". The latter hadn't been performed often earlier in 2004. "The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores" and "How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel" were not regulars anymore, but they were played often. "I Have Forgiven Jesus", "I'm Not Sorry" and "All The Lazy Dykes" were only played here and there to add variety to the setlists.

Besides "November Spawned A Monster" mentioned earlier, Morrissey's back catalogue was represented by "Everyday Is Like Sunday" (still following an intro of the New York Dolls' "Subway Train") and "Now My Heart Is Full". The latter was a live favourite which was actually 'promoted' to setlist regular on this leg of the tour. Previous 2004 staples "Such A Little Thing Makes Such A Big Difference" and "I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday" were only played occasionally on this leg, and rarely both on the same night, and "Jack The Ripper" was played once only.

Morrissey usually included four songs from the Smiths years in the setlist. The previously mentioned "How Soon Is Now?" was the standard set opener while "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" was the standard encore. The two other Smiths numbers were alternately selected among "Shakespeare's Sister", "Rubber Ring", "Shoplifters Of The World Unite" and "The Headmaster Ritual".

Besides the above, the future b-side "Don't Make Fun Of Daddy's Voice" was played every night. "No One Can Hold A Candle To You", the other song from that era which had yet to be released and which Morrissey had played earlier on the 2004 tour, was now completely retired.

Here is the number of times each song was performed on this leg, in descending order of frequency. This is based on 10 concerts.

Don't Make Fun Of Daddy's Voice - 10
First Of The Gang To Die - 10
How Soon Is Now? - 10
I Like You - 10
Irish Blood, English Heart - 10
Let Me Kiss You - 10
Now My Heart Is Full - 10
Subway Train/Everyday Is Like Sunday - 10
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out - 10
November Spawned A Monster - 9
You Know I Couldn't Last - 9
How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel? - 7
Munich Air Disaster 1958 - 7
Rubber Ring - 7
The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores - 7
Shakespeare's Sister - 6
I Have Forgiven Jesus - 4
I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday - 4
Shoplifters Of The World Unite - 4
Such A Little Thing Makes Such A Big Difference - 4
I'm Not Sorry - 3
Jack The Ripper - 2
All The Lazy Dykes - 1
The Headmaster Ritual - 1

Click here for more tour statistics.

The recent addition of a keyboard player to the line-up meant that Morrissey could play songs from his back catalogue that he could not have done as beautifully before, and he could improve the live arrangement of others. The best example of this is the 2004 live adaptation of "How Soon Is Now?". During the Smiths days, the addition of second guitarist Craig Gannon to the band's line-up on the The Queen Is Dead tour had helped make the song sound more like it did on record (compared to the way it was done earlier on the Meat Is Murder tour), but it still lacked something. In 2004 Morrissey and his band managed to recreate the song even better than in 1986. The only downside is that it should have been played on the previous leg of festival dates when the audience, though not always familiar with Morrissey's music, would still have recognised this Smiths classic.

The other Smiths classic "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" was lyrically very faithful to the studio version. The only new change was when Morrissey followed "if a double-decker bus crashes into us" or "if a ten ton truck kills the both of us" with either "so what!" or "who cares!". Surprisingly at this point in time Morrissey sang the chorus at the end of the song. He had only done this once at the very beginning of the Queen Is Dead tour in 1986, then never again, even in solo, until halfway into the festival dates earlier in the year. The song was always slotted as an encore. On some nights it was gradually stripped of its parts after each band member one by one put down their instrument and left the stage, leaving keyboardist Mikey Farrell to play the song's 'violin' melody. On other nights the song was not extended and Morrissey left stage at the same time as his musicians after they all got into a line, arms around each other, and bowed down to the audience.

In "The Headmaster Ritual" Morrissey changed "bruises bigger than dinner plates" to "bruises as big as dinner plates". Funnily enough, in an interview published shortly before the tour Johnny Marr mentioned that when the Smiths had recorded the song, he had had a discussion with Morrissey in which he told him that he should sing "as big as" instead of "bigger than". It seems that Morrissey finally took the advice, albeit 20 years later. In "Rubber Ring" Morrissey sang "a sad factor widely known", which is what he had originally written. He also sang "Good God! smother me Mother" or "Please God! smother me Mother".

"Everyday Is Like Sunday" was segued from the first verse of a New York Dolls song called "Subway Train". Many fans thought that the extra verse they heard came from Morrissey's "My Love Life" because the latter is musically very similar to, and probably inspired by that New York Dolls song. Morrissey was more conservative than usual with the changes in that title. He still sang "scratch on a postcard" and sometimes followed this with "dear Mum I dearly wish I was not here", "Mama! how I dearly wish...", "Mummie how I dearly wish...", "Oh God! how I dearly wish..." or "Jesus! how I dearly wish..." Instead of "please come, please come nuclear bomb" he went for the original studio version's "come, come nuclear bomb". At the very end of the song he often extended the era's standard live change "...when you're all alone, when you're on your own" to "at least when you're all alone, when you're on your own". In the song's intro "Subway Train" he sang "it isn't easy" instead of "it ain't easy".

Morrissey was also more conservative with "Now My Heart Is Full" than he had been on past tours, but still took a few more liberties than he had earlier in the year. Of course he did the usual "I was tired again, I tried again" and "every jammy Stretford poet", but in the latter case he sometimes sang "every jammy Manchester poet". He sometimes changed "just some rain-coated lovers' puny brothers" to "just some rain-coated lovers' ugly brothers", "just some rain-coated sisters" or "just some rain-coated lovers and their sisters". He also sang a few times "now this heart is full".

In "November Spawned A Monster" Morrissey often sang "sleep on and dream of love, why?, because it's the closest you will get to love". He always changed "people discussing me" to "idiots discussing me". He also always sang "you're just so ugly, you're so so ugly" and "please hug me, oh hug me". He often followed the line "a symbol of where mad, mad lovers must pause and draw the line" with "no, no, no, no..."

The 2004 live arrangement of "Jack The Ripper" featured a new musical arrangement of the outro. As usual Morrissey dropped the song's final verse and replaced it with a repeat of the chorus. In 2004 this repeat of the chorus was over minimal music, almost accapella, and the audience would often sing along with Morrissey. The man sometimes slightly changed a line in that song to "you don't agree but you don't refuse me, I know you". In "Such A Little Thing Makes Such A Big Difference" he sometimes stuck to the studio version's "how I love all of the very simple things of life" or went for the alternate "...complicated things of life". He also sometimes followed the line "most people keep their brains between their legs" with "I do!", "yummy!" or "agree?". In "I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday" he never did the alternate live change to "I know it's gonna someday to me".

The songs from the new album that had already been played live on the 2002 tour (so that's "First Of The Gang To Die", "The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores", "Irish Blood, English Heart" or "I Like You") were now done the same way they appeared on "You Are The Quarry". Having recorded them, Morrissey had now settled on definitive lyrics whereas in 2002 the songs slowly evolved as they were being broken into. However, on a few occasions in "I Like You" he sang "hatred makes them cry" instead of "envy makes them cry". Horn was added to the bridge in "Let Me Kiss You".

In "How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel?" Morrissey still occasionally made the change to "everybody look, see pain and turn away" but on most dates he stuck to the original "everybody look, see pain and walk away". On one occasion he sang "everybody look, see pain and cycle away". A line further into the song sounded like "as for you in your uniform, your totally smelly uniform", but Morrissey wasn't the one singing the word "totally", it was actually a sound sample of a man saying "we told you". In "I Have Forgiven Jesus" Morrissey sometimes changed "wednesday: condescension" to "wednesday: degradation".

In the first few performances of "You Know I Couldn't Last" Morrissey changed the line "the critics who can't break you" to "the critics who just cannot break you", "the critics who fail to break you", "the critics who just hate you" or "the critics who cannot stand you". In "Don't Make Fun Of Daddy's Voice" the recently introduced change from "something got stuck in his throat" to "somebody got stuck in his throat" was not done anymore, but it would eventually return.

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

There are quite a few visual souvenirs of this leg of the You Are The Quarry tour out there, but only a few are in common circulation and/or of reasonable quality. Of the latter, only one recording is of excellent quality: the television broadcast of the Reading concert, which features the complete set minus closer "You Know I Couldn't Last".

Most casual collectors should be satisfied with bootleg DVDs of the latter television broadcast, but if they want more they will have to settle on audience recordings, such as the one featuring the near complete set of Morrissey's other appearance at the Carling festival, this one in Leeds. The latter also features a slightly different setlist, something which may appeal to some. A reasonable alternative to this is an audience recording of the complete Perth show.

The rest of what is available will only be of interest to completists. There is a good-ish audience recording of a partial set (Paisley) or simply bad recordings of full or partial sets (Blackpool, Liverpool and Preston).

All dates from this section are available on bootlegs, but the recordings vary in quality and rarity. Collectors interested in good quality recordings will be mostly interested in the audio from the Reading Festival television broadcast mentioned above, which features a complete set minus closer "You Know I Couldn't Last". An alternative to this is an excellent audience recording of Newcastle. It is not quite as good as the tv broadcast of Reading, but still well above average as audience recordings go. Collectors should just make sure they get the Newcastle recording done by kemagsw and not the other in circulation for the same date, an average recording credited to taper Wiltteri.

Besides the above, collectors will find an inferior radio broadcast or a webcast of Edinburgh, average to good audience recordings of Paisley, Blackpool, Bridlington and Liverpool, or audio lifted off audience video recordings of Leeds and Perth. The quality varies little between these, so non-completist collectors in search of live performances of their favourite songs should have a look at the setlists to decide which concert(s) they want.

Finally there is also an audience recording of Preston out there, but this is not in common circulation at this point in time.