19 October 1986
Leisure Centre, Newport, Wales
The Queen Is Dead
Panic
I Want The One I Can't Have
Vicar In A Tutu
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
Ask
(Marie's The Name) His Latest Flame/Rusholme Ruffians
Frankly, Mr. Shankly
The Boy With The Thorn In His Side
The Draize Train
This concert started off on a good note... the band was in a great mood and the audience very receptive. One third into the set, while singing "The Boy With The Thorn In His Side" Morrissey, who was moving dangerously close to the edge of the stage touching the hands of fans in the front rows, was pulled down to the floor. Johnny, Andy, Mike and Craig finished the song as an instrumental while Morrissey got back up and was carried backstage. They waited a bit for him to recover and the audience broke into a chant of "Morrissey! Morrissey!" while Mike banged the drums. In order to give the impatient fans something to chew on the Smiths then did the instrumental "The Draize Train" which was planned further down the setlist as a first encore. Following this, soundman Grant Showbiz came out and interrupted another chant of Morrissey's name to announce "Morrissey is getting his breath back at the moment and we'll be on again in 10 minutes okay... 10 minutes..."

But Morrissey finally had to be rushed to the hospital and Showbiz returned to announce the cancellation: "He's too hurt to continue, he's already left the stage, so..." before being himself struck by a flying bottle. Morrissey was ready to carry on but was convinced to stop by the doctor. The concert was abandoned, to many fans' dismay and rage, and a riot ensued. Damage was done to the venue and six fans were arrested. The next day, The Sun newspaper claimed that Morrissey had been injured by a gang of Monarchists protesting about the song "The Queen is Dead", which was of course untrue.

 


A good audience recording of the complete 10 tracks is available on a bootleg titled "The Perrier Gone Straight To My Head" (recorder: Soundsville International's Paul). This has made it onto file sharing networks on the internet.

 

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