Summary by Joakim Reynols

I've been waiting 8 years for this night (since Morrissey has never been to Sweden before) and now it was finally here. The venue with a 3000 (I think) capacity was more or less sold out. Elcka tried to give a good show but the sound was pretty lousy, and they were greeted with polite applause.

8.45 sharp the smoke filled the stage and I knew my dream was about to come true. After the " The Operation" intro, he appeared in a pink shirt, grabbed the microphone and shouted "Hello Morrissey". Of course I shivered.  He gave us a good show. He didn't say much between the songs except for some "thank you, friends" and "thank you, gorgeous". He talked a bit with someone in the front row, but I couldn't hear anything more than "why should I?" and "like what?".

At one point he spotted a Manchester United scarf in the audience, and he took a bow towards it to pay it his respect. Soon he got the scarf on stage. He also got flowers and notes. Of course all of the songs sounded great, and he sang perfectly. After "Sunny" he apparently thought the applause was too weak and he said "you didn't know that song, did you?". Which of course we did. There were no stage invaders. Afterwards I heard a guy say that he had tried to get on the stage, but that he couldn´t move because it was too crowded in front of the stage. One hour passes very quickly when you've been waiting for 8 years, and soon it was all over.

A couple of days after the show I ran into a Swedish pop journalist (a Morrissey fan) at a record fair and I asked him what he thought of the show. He said he liked it pretty much but thought the audience were a bit passive, compared to a show he had seen in Los Angeles one month earlier. "But they were all 19 years old, and have recently discovered Morrissey", he said. (In Stockholm the crowd were mostly older Morrissey fans). He also said that it is funnier to interview Morrissey than to see him live. (He interviewed Moz in Paris in 1992 at the release of "Your Arsenal". Well, I don't know.

Summary by Niklas Lundin

Morrissey's first ever visit to Stockholm was to a freezing city, with temperatures below zero and snow on the ground. He played at Solnahallen, a sports arena without any charm at all. The stage is located against one wall, the big floor (where usually basketball is played) is for the standing audience and at the back wall there are bleachers, quite a long way from the stage.

At 8.45, the drums from "The Operation" began, and a little while later Morrissey and the band entered. At that time the standing area was crowded and the tension was extraordinary. He started with "Boy Racer and "Alma Matters", a very sing-along beginning indeed.

What struck me most was his singing, how he seems to put himself into every word he sings. Especially in "Paint A Vulgar Picture", his voice was really astounding. At most of the concerts you visit, the song is badly mixed and the singer doesn’t give a damn. But Morrissey…

The encore here, as elsewhere, was "Shoplifters". He had changed from a pink to a white shirt. Luckily I was prepared for just one song, after reading reports from other concerts. The audience was in real ecstasy now, but there were no stage invasions. I don’t know the reasons for that; perhaps the Swedish quietness has something to do with it.

Afterwards there were a few complaints about how short he had played (just under one hour), but nevertheless it was a fantastic experience. I could have stayed all night…