28 March 1985
St George's Hall, Bradford
William, It Was Really Nothing
Nowhere Fast
I Want The One I Can't Have
What She Said
Hand in Glove
How Soon Is Now?
Stretch Out And Wait
That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore
Shakespeare's Sister
Rusholme Ruffians
The Headmaster Ritual
Still Ill
Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now
Meat Is Murder
/Handsome Devil
/Barbarism Begins At Home
//Miserable Lie
This gig wasn't that much of a success because of negative elements who disturbed the concert. Punks from Bradford showed up with the sole intention of spitting at Morrissey. A couple of them were thrown out prior to the band coming on stage. However a number of others made it into the hall and particularly towards the end of the gig were repeatedly spitting at Morrissey. On a more positive note, the gig sold out well in advance, there were flowers everywhere and the crowd was extremely receptive. The setlist was the typical one of this tour, including the occasional "Handsome Devil".

Morrissey wasn't very talkative. After "Hand In Glove" he asked someone in the audience "What would you like to say?" Shortly after that the most recent single "Shakespeare's Sister" was introduced with a bitter comment about its poor performance in the charts "This is our new single which thanks to Rough Trade promotion has lept in at number 29 this week." Morrissey's only other banter in the main set after that was the introduction of "Still Ill" with the plain "This song is called 'Still Ill'." The latter half of that song ended up only instrumental because Morrissey had left the stage, probably to change his shirt which was covered in spit and/or because he was too annoyed with the troublemakers. There was a break before the Smiths could resume the show with "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now".

In "Handsome Devil" Morrissey changed "on your mammary glands" to something different but undecipherable because he was out of breath. When the band returned to perform the second encore, Morrissey said "Thanks to those of you who really care, thank you" before going into a very angry version of "Miserable Lie".

Thanks to Steve Myers for information.

 


A rather good audience recording of this concert is available from certain bootleg traders and on the internet (recorder: Lee).

 

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