Ask
Bigmouth Strikes Again
London/Miserable Lie
Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others
The Boy With The Thorn In His Side
Shoplifters Of The World Unite
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
Is It Really So Strange?
Cemetry Gates
This Night Has Opened My Eyes
Still Ill
Panic
/The Queen Is Dead
//William, It Was Really Nothing
//Hand In Glove

What makes this gig even more special is that it turned out to be the only time songs like "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others", the upcoming single "Shoplifters Of The World Unite" and the "London"/"Miserable Lie" medley were ever performed by the Smiths. "This Night Has Opened My Eyes" which hadn't been played in a long time was also performed. Finally, "William, It Was Really Nothing" and the live staple "Hand In Glove" which had been dropped on the recent British leg of the "The Queen Is Dead" tour also returned.

Mike teased the audience with the drum beat to "Panic" before "Bigmouth Strikes Again". The latter song was again extended with a slightly longer intro. The audience was surprised to find that at the end of "London", soon after the usual live change "my God he goes!" instead of "he really goes!", the band moved from the song's bridge into the fast-paced outro to "Miserable Lie". As they switched from the former to the latter, Morrissey wildly whipped the microphone cord in loops. Instead of singing "I'm just a country mile behind the world", he switched to the early lyric "I'd run a hundred miles away from you". The medley was extremely well received, the crowd roared in appreciation and Morrissey thanked them with the declaration "You've got incredibly good taste".

"Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others" was the only song from "The Queen Is Dead" which had never been played live before. It was therefore performed here for the first and last time ever. In it Morrissey added an extra verse that went "On the shop floor, there's a calendar, as obvious as snow, as if we didn't know". This new verse and the song's acoustic adaptation made it one of the highlights of the evening. Morrissey replied to the loud applause that number received by growling loudly "Hello!". A few songs later, the soon to be released "Shoplifters Of The World Unite" was introduced with "This is our new single..."

After the latter song Morrissey picked up a letter on the floor and placed it on the drum rise. He then picked a flower, crumpled it and threw it away, and placed another one inside his jacket, hugging it next to his heart before sending it back into the crowd. In the crowd favourite "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out", as was tradition at that point in time, Morrissey didn't sing the repeated title chorus at the end as he does on the "The Queen Is Dead" album. The man acknowledged the audience's unfamiliarity with the next song by following its performance with the introduction "Thank you, that song was called 'Is It Really So Strange?'." At the beginning of it he reversed two lines and sang "Oh yes you can me and you can kick me". In "Cemetry Gates" a line was wittily inverted to "We stonely read the graves". Morrissey also sang "They were born, they lived, they died" instead of the usual longer line. In "Panic" the singer swung a noose around to highlight the "hang the DJ" lyric.

Returning to the stage for the first of two encores Morrissey said "Thank you we love you" then launched into a roaring version of "The Queen Is Dead". This is when fans started to climb on stage. There would be about a dozen of them making it up there throughout the two encores. Morrissey waved a board around during that song, but instead of saying THE QUEEN IS DEAD like it did earlier in the year, the board now had the words TWO LIGHT ALES PLEASE on it. The man also made a slight lyric change in that number when he sang "hemmed in like a boar between arches" instead of "stuck like a boar between arches". After the song he threw his shirt into the crowd before the band left stage again. The Smiths then returned for a final two-song encore. The last of these was "Hand In Glove". It ended with Morrissey wailing in a high pitched voice for about 20 seconds. The Smiths didn't know it at the time, but with its final line "I'll probably never see you again", "Hand In Glove", the band's first ever release, couldn't have been a better way of saying goodbye to their audience.

Tickets were £8, £7, £6 and £5.

Pete Shelley.

Information needed, but it is assumed the merchandise must have been similar to what was sold on the recent British leg of the "The Queen Is Dead" tour. The only confirmed item was a mug with the words "Free Nelson Mandela" on it (or something similar).

A T-Rex compilation of some duration was played between Pete Shelley and the Smiths. It is unclear whether something else was also played. However the last song before the Smiths entered stage was a near complete recording of "Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty", not only the short snippet heard at the beginning of "The Queen Is Dead" on the album of the same name.

Alain Delon, as seen on the cover of the "The Queen Is Dead" album.

This date's unique performance of "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others" was released as a b-side to the "I Started Something I Couldn't Finish" 12" and cassette single in the UK and the "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before" single in other parts of the world. It was later reissued on cd on the rare French freebie cd-EP "Handsome Devils" and the more common 1992 cd-single reissue of "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out".

Thanks to Steve from Soundsville International this historical concert is available on bootleg video and DVD. This recording of the complete concert is of reasonably good quality for an audience one. There are three versions out there. All feature the same footage, but vary in quality and have different audio tracks. The most circulated version was transfered from VHS and features the original recorded audio. A second version has the same footage but has the better sounding "Somebody Waved Goodbye" audio bootleg (read below) dubbed over. Fans will prefer the third version. It was transfered to DVD straight from the master (so no VHS in the lineage) and has the best available audio recording mentioned below as the audio track.

An audio audience recording of the complete concert is circulated on various titled and untitled bootlegs, in different levels of quality (recorder: Mark T, working for Big Al aka Fat Alex). It includes the near-complete "Take Me Back To Dead Old Blighty" pre-entrance song. The only downside is that all circulated versions of this show have a recording of "The Queen Is Dead" from a different date in its place. The master has since been lost so whatever imperfect or incomplete version of that song it might have held is now lost.

The best version of this recording out there is from a very good transfer from a first generation tape to lossless digital format (FLAC). A version very close in quality is more commonly found on both cd and digital format under the title "Somebody Waved Goodbye". It was also very likely produced from a first generation tape because the content is exactly the same as the digital transfer mentioned above (same alternate "The Queen Is Dead", same pre-entrance song fade-in, etc).

"Never Had No One Ever" also stems from the above recording and is an interesting alternative to "Somebody Waved Goodbye". It also features the complete concert with that version of "The Queen Is Dead" from another date. However the sound quality is slightly inferior, particularly on the first few songs, probably because it was produced from a higher generation tape copy. Also, only 30 seconds of the "Take Me Back To Dead Old Blighty" intro are featured (instead of the 80 seconds found on "Somebody Waved Goodbye"). The bootleg was first released on a double LP paired with 8 tracks from Madrid 18 May 1985. The reissue on cd only includes one song from the latter date, "Handsome Devil". However better bootlegs exist for that earlier gig. Click on date for full details.

The bootleg cd "The Final Gig" is slightly less interesting. It features the complete set but the sound quality is clearly inferior to the above two. This also features the band's final session on John Peel's radio programme.

"Royal Command Performance" was first released on a red vinyl double LP and later reissued on CD with more or less the same artwork. This bootleg's sound is rather muffled and the set lacks "Ask", "Bigmouth Strikes Again", "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" and "Is It Really So Strange?". The double LP set is paired with 12 song from the Manchester G-Mex concert on 19 July 1986 as well as live versions of "Jeane" and "Girl Don't Come" by Sandie Shaw on her own. The compact disc only includes 9 songs from that G-Mex gig. Click on date for full track listing details.

The "A Nice Bit Of Meat" mixed content bootleg released on CD and LP includes this gig's "This Night Has Opened My Eyes" only. Click on links for full track listing details. "Wilde About The Smiths", a factory pressed cd in digipack, features "The Queen Is Dead" from this concert with many other live tracks, rarities and radio sessions.

Digital transfers of all the bootlegs mentioned above except for "Wilde About The Smiths" are available on the usual file sharing networks.

The existence of a soundboard bootleg of this concert is rumoured and some traders advertise the recording they own for this date as being soundboard, but what they have is actually the first version listed above. This mislabeling is due to the fact that Big Al - the original distributor of this recording - labeled it as being from the mixing desk because the quality was very good.