Wolverhampton, England 1988-12-22 (Morrissey concert)

Concert poster

Morrissey Live
Tour	Pre-Album Shows
Date	December 22, 1988
Venue	Wolverhampton Civic Hall
Location	Wolverhampton, England
Opening Act	Bradford ^[1]

Set List ^[2]

Concert Notes

"This first solo Morrissey show was also meant as a farewell Smiths concert. The musicians backing Morrissey were ex-Smiths Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke, as well as once Smiths #5 Craig Gannon filling in as guitarist. The setlist was a mix of Morrissey tracks with Smiths tracks from 1987, so none of it had been performed in front of a live audience before. The Smiths song were actually never played live since either.

"Admission was free to anyone wearing a Morrissey shirt, but most people turned up with Smiths shirts and were still admitted. Only half of the fans who traveled to Wolverhampton made it inside the venue. Outside the queuing and organisation almost turned to chaos. The atmosphere inside was obviously very charged. There was a great deal of cheering and chanting Morrissey's name to the English football tune. Throughout the short set, many fans made it on stage, much more than for a typical Smiths concert.

"Morrissey came on stage to a thunder of applause, after a long period of cheering and chanting. In the first song, "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before", he sang "And so I drank one, or was it four?" instead of "... it became four". He actually sang that line as it had been originally written and not as it appeared on "Strangeways Here We Come". Before "Interesting Drug" which was yet unreleased and unknown to the fans, Morrissey started "This song is called..." but never finished his line. In that song as in the previous one, "Disappointed", Morrissey missed many lines because of the mayhem with the fans keeping him away from his microphone.

"Just before "Suedehead", Mike Joyce teased the fans with a few notes of the drum intro to "The Queen Is Dead", but that song was not to be played. Morrissey changed the "oh so many illustrations" line in "Suedehead" to "Oh so many blank pages". He also sang "I'm so very saddened, oh, I am so sickened NOW". Before "The Last Of The Famous International Playboys" Morrissey started "I'd like to say hello..." but didn't finish his line and simply introduced the next song.

"Before "Death At One's Elbow" Morrissey managed to say what he had originally meant to: "I'd like to say hello to Julian and hello to Mouse.... your mother's letter arrived today, she has a good hand...". In that song Morrissey changed a line from "you'll slip on the trail of my bespattered remains" to "you'll slip on the trail of all of my entrails". After that number and its final lines "Goodbye my love, goodbye my love", Morrissey just said "goodbye" and everyone left the stage. They were called back with much insistence and performed one more song, a very rocking "Sweet And Tender Hooligan"." ^[3]

Live Recordings

Unofficial Releases

	A recording of this show was "first made available on a bootleg LP titled "Untitled". The set was also featured on the bootleg LP "A Nice Bit Of Meat 2", in same poor quality, but with mixed content (radio, live, soundchecks). The show is also available on cd on "Wolverhampton '88" and "The First Solo Show", as well as on many other fanmade cd-rs. Many fans have attempted to 'remaster' the recording to improve its sound, so versions of varying quality are available. None of them however stand out as being better than others. Those credited as having a better sound are just louder, but at the same time, more distorted." ^[4]
	A complete version of this concert is available on the A Nice Bit Of Meat 2 bootleg LP.
	A complete soundboard version of this concert is available on the Live at The Civic Hall Wolverhampton bootleg LP.

An edit of the professionally recorded video for this concert was released in 2013.

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Official Releases

An audio recording of Sweet And Tender Hooligan from this concert was released as a B side on Interesting Drug 12" single.

This show was recorded on video by Tim Broad but has not been officially broadcast or released in full. However, Hulmerist features Sister I'm A Poet from this show.