31 July 1986
Kingswood Music Theatre, Toronto, Canada
Panic
Still Ill
I Want The One I Can't Have
Vicar In A Tutu
Frankly, Mr. Shankly
Is It Really So Strange?
Cemetry Gates
What She Said (with Rubber Ring intro and outro)
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
The Boy With The Thorn In His Side
That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore
Ask
Shakespeare's Sister
William, It Was Really Nothing
How Soon Is Now?
Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now
The Queen Is Dead
/Money Changes Everything
/Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want
/Bigmouth Strikes Again (instrumental)
//Hand In Glove
All in all this was a great concert, like many others to come on this tour.

As the band entered stage Morrissey apologised for the bad weather "We're sorry about the rain... we blame the Queen..." At the time of the concert, Sire, the Smiths' label in North America, were not planning to release the "Panic" single (they finally changed their minds later in the fall). So Morrissey introduced the song with the line "This is our new single which, naturally, of course, they're not releasing..." The classic "Still Ill" had Johnny Marr's intricate picking hidden during the first verse, so that Craig Gannon's rhythm guitar carried the song, giving it a very different effect. Before "I Want The One I Can't Have" Morrissey told the audience "Don't be shy, come closer..." After "Is It Really So Strange?" he said "You're very well mannered... so are we..."

Following "Cemetry Gates" Morrissey asked "Any questions? Good!" At some point someone ripped the t-shirt off his back so he remained bare chested until someone else gave him a "I'd like to drop my trousers to the Queen" shirt from the 1985 tour. Following "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want", as the band was taking a long time getting ready to launch into the next planned number, Morrissey slowly articulated "Stretch... out... stretch out and wait..." That planned number was not "Stretch Out And Wait", but "Bigmouth Strikes Again", and Morrissey didn't even get a chance to sing it. As soon as it started fans flooded the stage. Morrissey was forced to flee, leaving the band to finish the song as an instrumental. When he came back for the second encore, he said "You've been very nice, you've been very kind, thank you..."

The Kingswood Theatre was part of an amusement park. Tickets were $5.00 plus admission to the fairgrounds. "How Soon Is Now?" and "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others" could be heard soundchecked from the outside before the show. However the latter song was never played on this leg of the tour.

 


There is confusion about the bootleg recordings of this show. One audience recording which has been traded on compact disc and on the internet for many years is obviously from the same show (same banter, same musical differences) as another recording commonly circulated under the 30 July 1986 London date. After extensive research it appears that these recordings are all from Toronto and not London.

To add to the confusion, one of these two recordings is available via four different transfers, of varying quality. The best one, from 1st or 2nd generation tape, is being traded untitled on compact discs, and is very limitedly found on the internet at this point in time. Another transfer is of average quality, circulated untitled, lacks set opener "Panic" and only features the beginnings of "Frankly Mr Shankly" and "Vicar In A Tutu". Another one, badly edited and also of average quality, does include "Panic" but excludes "Is It Really So Strange?", "The Boy With The Thorn In His Side" and "Shakespeare's Sister". It can be found under the title "Any Question?!". On the internet, it sometimes has 3 songs ("Meat Is Murder", "Nowhere Fast", "Stretch Out And Wait") from another unspecified date tagged in the middle or at the end. The final transfer sounds rather bad, it was probably done via a high generation tape copy. It features the complete set and is often seen under the title "Live In Tronto 1986". These can all be found on the internet.

The other audience recording is circulated under the title "Live In Ontario". The sound quality is rather dull, somewhere between the quality of the best and the worst transfers of the other recording mentioned above. This is also found on the internet.

It is unclear which of the recordings/transfers is featured on the bootleg titled "Very Well Mannered".

 

Do you have information about this concert? Or do you own an uncirculated recording of it? If yes please contribute and get credited.