18 March 1984
De Montfort Hall, Leicester
Hand In Glove
Still Ill
Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now
This Charming Man
Girl Afraid
Pretty Girls Make Graves
This Night Has Opened My Eyes
Barbarism Begins At Home
Back To The Old House
What Difference Does It Make?
/Reel Around The Fountain
//You've Got Everything Now
//Handsome Devil
///These Things Take Time
There is not much to report about the Smiths' second visit to Leicester on this tour. The band were very well received and didn't have to suffer much from troublemakers. They even gave the Leicester fans three encores, a rare occurrence. Support band was The Telephone Boxes. Tickets were £3.50.

After standard set opener "Hand In Glove" Morrissey greeted the audience. "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" was introduced with the line "This is our new single, really, and it's called 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now'." Of course the single in question was still two months away from being released. It wasn't even recorded yet. Before introducing "Barbarism Begins At Home", Morrissey shouted "WHAT!" to some heckler in the audience.

Returning for the first encore, while waiting for everyone to be ready, Johnny picked a tune on his guitar while the audience clapped hands to the rhythm. Then Morrissey arrived on stage and got engaged in a back and forth game with the audience. He shouted "No!" and the audience cheered back "Yeah!". They did this a few times until the band finally launched into "Reel Around The Fountain". "You've Got Everything Now" was followed in quick succession by "Handsome Devil", it was tradition at the time. Surprisingly, the band returned for a third encore, the recently reintroduced "These Things Take Time".

 


A poor audience recording of the complete gig is available on cd-rs from bootleg traders. This is also available in digital format on the internet. The lossless files there sound as good as the master, but the MP3 files were corrupted and sound staticky.

 

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