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After touring "Your Arsenal" extensively throughout North America, Morrissey crossed the Atlantic for a short 10-day tour of the UK plus 2 dates on the European mainland. These were the only British dates in support of "Your Arsenal". Following the Madstock fiasco in August, Morrissey was under the NME's fire. They were accusing him of being racist and the whole unfavorable media attention could have had an impact on ticket sales. Instead of giving the NME what they wanted by denying those rumours, he ignored them and got his revenge by making his own negative publicity of the NME at every show, encouraging fans not to buy the paper and exposing its journalists as liars.

On a few nights he also commented about the lack of success of current single "Certain People I Know".

The personnel for this tour was Boz Boorer (guitars), Alain Whyte (guitars), Gary Day (bass) and Spencer Cobrin (drums).

 


Support band was country-ish rockabilly girl group The Well-Oiled Sisters, except on the 12th in Birmingham where support was provided by the Mercurys, and on the 19th in London where Kirsty MacColl opened up (with a special surprise appearance by Shane McGowan).

 


- A black t-shirt showing the cover image of the intended (but never released) USA "Glamorous Glue" single on the front and this leg's dates on the back was sold at the Bristol show only, as Morrissey wasn't happy with the way it came out (view).
- White shirt showing the "We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful" single artwork. This was slightly different to the one sold in the USA earlier in the year as it featured the Union jack instead of the Stars And Stripes (view).
- White t-shirt showing gangster Charles Richardson on the front and this leg's dates on the back (view front, back).
- Presumably, not to stir any more controversy, the skinhead girls t-shirts were not sold anymore as the tour reached England, and the skinhead girls tour programme was replaced with one featuring gangster Charlie Richardson on the cover.

 


Morrissey and his bandmates entered stage to Klaus Nomi's "Wayward Sisters". Information is needed about what was played before that (the following are rumoured: Siouxsie And the Banshees-Mirage; Buffy Sainte-Marie-Until It's Time for You to Go; Ayshea-Farewell). All is known is that the tape had some songs in common with the Kill Uncle tour tape. Shirley Bassey's "Ave Maria" was played as the fans exited the venue.

 


The most common backdrop seems to have been the one showing gangster Charles Richardson. In a few cities such as Manchester and Dusseldorf, the show started with the smiling Elvis backdrop, and ended with the Diana Dors one from the film "New Year's Eve" (view in situ; original image needed). In Sheffield the smiling Elvis image was up for one song, then Charles Richardson for the remainder of the main set and Diana Dors for the encore. In Paris, the backdrops were the Elvis and Charlie Richardson ones. The skinhead girls backdrop was probably not used in the UK because of the racism accusations.

 


The setlist didn't vary much in length nor in content throughout this final leg of the Your Arsenal tour. Most cities were treated to 18 songs, although on a few occasions one song was skipped which brought the setlist length down to 17.

All songs from "Your Arsenal" were performed every night, except for "Tomorrow" which was added only for two dates near the end. Other setlist regulars were "November Spawned A Monster", "Sister I'm A Poet", "The Loop", "Such A Little Thing Makes Such A Big Difference" and "Alsatian Cousin". "Suedehead" and "Jack The Ripper" were played on all nights except one. "Girl Least Likely To" and "He Knows I'd Love To See Him" were performed almost to the end of the tour when they were replaced by "Tomorrow" and "The Last Of The Famous International Playboys".

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

Alsatian Cousin - 10
Certain People I Know - 10
Glamorous Glue - 10
I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday - 10
November Spawned A Monster - 10
Sister I'm A Poet - 10
Such A Little Thing Makes Such A Big Difference - 10
The Loop - 10
The National Front Disco - 10
We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful - 10
We'll Let You Know - 10
You're Gonna Need Someone On Your Side - 10
You're The One For Me, Fatty - 10
Jack The Ripper - 9
Seasick, Yet Still Docked - 9
Suedehead - 9
Girl Least Likely To - 6
He Knows I'd Love To See Him - 6
The Last Of The Famous International Playboys - 3
Tomorrow - 2

Click here for more tour statistics.

 


The fans were teased with the opening notes to "Ouija Board Ouija Board" at the beginning of "November Spawned A Monster", something that Morrissey did on this leg of the Your Arsenal tour only. The latter song still featured some clarinet played by Boz during its bridge like it did on previous legs of this tour. "You're Gonna Need Someone On Your Side" was not the standard set opener anymore. In it Morrissey still constantly changed the line "Someone kindly told me that you wasted eight of nine lives" to "Someone kindly told me you've collected very sharp bread knives". With the exception of the last three dates, "The National Front Disco" was scheduled as set closer. In it, Morrissey usually changed a line to "Ah, have we lost our boy" and skipped the title, the "Ah, then you might do" and the "When you've settled the score" lines. Whether it was scheduled as set closer or not, the song always ended in an extended noisy jam of feedback and occasional instrument destruction.

In "We'll Let You Know", Morrissey sang "Is it London?" in a falsetto voice over the bridge, and often changed a line from "We sadly know" to "Of course we know". He also often ended the song with the slightly alternate "We are the last truly British people you wouldn't want to know". In "Such A Little Thing Makes Such A Big Difference", he changed a line to "How I love all of the complicated things of life". At the end of the song, instead of going into the "Leave me alone I was only singing" part, the band systematically switched to the slow and powerful "I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday". The newly released b-side "Jack The Ripper" was performed without its last verse, as it had been on the recent American dates.

There were many other lyrical changes. In "Sister I'm A Poet", Morrissey sang "A plastic bag stranded at the lights, this once was me" instead of the studio version's "Oh no, no, no-no, waiting at the lights, but not this time". In "Tomorrow" he didn't make the change to "I will tell everyone" but sometimes sang "through my useless body" instead of "through my shiftless body". In "Certain People I Know", he often sang "Don't you find life absurd?". As he always did in "He Knows I'd Love To See Him", Morrissey skipped the first two lines and started the song with "I have lived in the Arse of the word". He also dropped the final line "He doesn't know". In "Glamorous Glue", Morrissey changed a line to "I've been too much in love" or "I'm still too much in love". When the song was scheduled as main set closer, its ending was slightly extended the same way "The National Front Disco" was.

In "Girl Least Likely To", Morrissey also made a few lyric changes, singing "We live for the written word" and "I do think this but I can never say to the girl least likely to", and on some occasions, "standing round the shops with chips". He also rearranged some of the verses, dropping six lines in the process. On a few occasions in "Suedehead", Morrissey sang "Oh so many blank pages", a change that he hadn't done since the Kill Uncle tour. In the last two performances of "The Last Of The Famous International Playboys" as set closer, Morrissey changed a line to "just to make myself attracted to you" as he also did regularly when that song was a staple on the previous tour.

 


A mish-mash of tracks recorded in London and Paris at the end of this short tour was released by Morrissey in 1993 as the live album "Beethoven Was Deaf".

 


Audience video recordings of three dates from this section are in circulation. A rare treat, two different audience recordings of Sheffield are available to collectors. The best of the two features the full concert and is generally good. It is slightly shaky at times because it was zoomed in from a certain distance (center circle), but not to the point of annoyance. The other recording lacks opener "You're Gonna Need Someone On Your Side". The filming was done from the right balcony and the footage is shaky and the sound quality is average.

A full audience recording of the second London date is also circulated on VHS and DVD, but it is slightly scarcer and much less interesting because the camera is too often aimed away from the stage. The Dusseldorf gig was also filmed, but that recording's quality is subpar. The footage is steady and has good shots, but it was filmed from the rear of the hall and the sound is muffled.

 


Most concerts from this section on available on audio bootlegs, and in general the sound quality is excellent.

The manufactured bootleg cd titled "Happy Xmas!?" (also known under the title "Astoria, London 20/12/92") features an excellent soundboard recording of the full second London concert. However half of its tracks are available on official release "Beethoven Was Deaf". The latter also features half of the tracks from the manufactured bootleg cd "I'm A Poet", produced from a very good audience recording of the Paris gig.

Fans might prefer good to excellent audience recordings of the Sheffield, Manchester, Bristol and London-Alexandra Palace gigs. Two recordings of the latter and Manchester are actually in circulation. Content-wise, sound-wise and performance-wise these dates are very comparable. Bristol has a slightly shorter setlist. Click on individual dates for more information.

Completists will also want the Dusseldorf audience recording which sounds reasonably good, but slightly less than the above. The content is very similar to the above as well. Finally they might also want the poor audience recording of the Newcastle date circulated on the internet.