8 August 1986
Smith Center, George Washington U., Washington, DC
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
Still Ill
I Want The One I Can't Have
Vicar In A Tutu
Frankly, Mr. Shankly
Panic
Stretch Out And Wait
The Boy With The Thorn In His Side
Shakespeare's Sister
Cemetry Gates
Never Had No One Ever
What She Said (with Rubber Ring intro and outro)
That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore
Meat Is Murder
The Queen Is Dead
/How Soon Is Now?
//Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now
//Bigmouth Strikes Again
Morrissey and the band were in great form, particularly Johnny. At some point he took one of Mike's drumsticks and strummed his guitar with it before throwing it into the crowd. People could get next to the stage, but security was very tight. Only one girl managed to make it up there. It was very hot in the venue (a gymnasium) and at some point Morrissey teased the fans in the front rows with a glass of water he had next to him on stage.

The Smiths once again significantly scrambled the setlist. "Shakespeare's Sister" and "Vicar In A Tutu" returned and "Meat Is Murder" was played for the first time on this leg of the tour. To make space for these, "Is It Really So Strange?", "Money Changes Everything", "Hand In Glove" and "I Know It's Over" were dropped. "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" replaced "How Soon Is Now?" as set opener. The latter returned to the encore position.

"Panic", which was unreleased in the USA at that point in time, was introduced by Morrissey with "This is a new song... 'Panic'." After the song he said something undecipherable. Before "Cemetry Gates" the man started "I hope you all... shhh!... never mind..." and never finished what he meant to say. In "What She Said" he changed a line to "How come somebody hasn't noticed that I'm dead". "The Queen Is Dead" was introduced with "And now another little ... What? Another little bedtime message... some... - What?... something to sleep on?..." During the second encore of "Bigmouth Strikes Again", as he bent forward to shake hands, Morrissey was half pulled into the audience. The security guards managed to free him from the fans and he exited the stage, leaving the rest of the band to finish the song.

 


A reasonably good audience recording of this concert is circulated on fanmade CD-Rs and tapes. This is also available on the internet in various levels of quality. The most common version is a transfer from high-generation tape to MP3. Collectors might want to keep an eye out of the scarcer lower generation transfer circulated mostly in lossless format at this point in time.

 

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