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A new UK tour was scheduled in between two festival appearances, "Jobs For A Change" in London and Glastonbury '84. The non-festival dates covered mostly Scotland.

 


Non-applicable for the festival dates. The Woodentops supported the Smiths in Cornwall, and perhaps the other non-festival dates. Del Amitri supported in Inverness. The Telephone Boxes may have supported in Edinburgh.

 


There was a general programme for the Glastonbury Festival (view).

 


The Smiths entered stage after Cilla Black's "Love Of The Loved", and sometimes Sandie Shaw's "Girl Don't Come".

 


For their return to England, the Smiths stretched the setlist back to 15 songs. Two of these were new compositions, introduced less than a week before in Finland: "William, It Was Really Nothing" which was about to become the band's next single, and "Nowhere Fast" which would only be released the following February on the "Meat Is Murder" album.

"Girl Afraid" which had been neglected in Europe was reinstated for the whole tour. Other regulars were the following, in this approximate order: "Handsome Devil", "This Charming Man", "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now", "Still Ill", "I Don't Owe You Anything", "Jeane", "Barbarism Begins At Home", "Hand In Glove", "Pretty Girls Make Graves", "Miserable Lie", "What Difference Does It Make?", "You've Got Everything Now". "Jeane" had been reinstated in Europe and was kept on the setlist as a regular on this leg.

"These Things Take Time" was played in Carlisle only. "This Night Has Opened My Eyes" and "Reel Around The Fountain" were dropped altogether. Unlike "Back To The Old House" which had recently been dropped and would never be performed again, fans were to be treated to the other two on very few special occasions over the next few years.

Here is the number of times each song was performed on this leg, in descending order of frequency. This is based on 10 concerts.

William, It Was Really Nothing - 11
Barbarism Begins At Home - 10
Girl Afraid - 10
Hand In Glove - 10
Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now - 10
Jeane - 10
Nowhere Fast - 10
Still Ill - 10
Handsome Devil - 9
I Don't Owe You Anything - 9
Miserable Lie - 9
Pretty Girls Make Graves - 9
This Charming Man - 9
What Difference Does It Make? - 9
You've Got Everything Now - 9
These Things Take Time - 1

See here for more tour statistics.

 


The live sound of the Smiths was getting more and more refined at this point in time. Older familiar numbers such as "Handsome Devil", "Still Ill", "What Difference Does It Make?" and "Miserable Lie" were given a harder rockabilly-ish sound. "Girl Afraid" which was returning to the setlist after having been dropped for over a month had also meanwhile been beefed up by Johnny and sounded better than ever.

The newly written and yet unrecorded "Nowhere Fast" was getting its UK debut and was slotted as the standard opener during the summer of 1984. This early version also had a rockabilly feel to it and featured instrumental pauses that were dropped in the studio version to be released early the following year. The other new live addition "William, It Was Really Nothing" was also sensibly different musically to the version that would be later be recorded and, as announced by Morrissey on many of these dates, released as a single.

"Pretty Girls Make Graves" was played at that time with a reggae-ish bridge absent from the album version. "Barbarism Begins At Home" was performed with a lot of echo added to Morrissey's voice by the soundman in the song's latter half. For the latter half of this leg, in "Jeane", Johnny cleverly inserted the riff from the Beatles' "Day Tripper" in the instrumental bridge. At the very end of the song Morrissey often yelped loudly instead of singing "Oh Jeane!".

In "Still Ill" Morrissey sometimes changed lines to "I ended up with two lips" and "well if I were you I really wouldn't bother". In "Hand In Glove", instead of singing "but we have something they'll never have", Morrissey usually sang "we have something they never had". In "What Difference Does It Make?", he sometimes sang "But now you make me feel so ashamed because I've only got two heads". In "You've Got Everything Now" Morrissey still yelped a lot, especially when he was enjoying himself.

 


Nothing from these dates has been given an official release.

 


There is no footage in circulation on video or DVD for the summer of 1984.

 


The best well-distributed audio recording for this period in time is the one for the Carlisle concert. The sound is quite good and the crowd interaction was very well captured. The setlist was also extended by one track, "These Things Take Time", on that night only. One of the two audience recordings of the GLC Jobs For A Change Festival gig from two days earlier is also an excellent alternative, but it is very scarcely found at this point in time.

The Glasgow, Edinburgh, Blackpool and Glastonbury gigs are available on eponymous bootleg cds and on the internet. The best of these three is undoubtedly Glasgow, soundwise and performance-wise. The same could be said of the Glastonbury recording, but unfortunately the set was short, making it less appealing to non-completists.