25 February 2000
Roseland Ballroom, New York, NY

A Swallow On My Neck
Ouija Board, Ouija Board
Billy Budd
Hairdresser On Fire
November Spawned A Monster
Half A Person
Lost
Now My Heart Is Full
I Am Hated For Loving
Meat Is Murder
Boxers
The Teachers Are Afraid Of the Pupils
I Can Have Both
Is It Really So Strange?
Break Up the Family
Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me
/Shoplifters Of the World Unite
This concert was a good one. The audience was very receptive and Morrissey, feeding off its energy, gave the best of himself. There was no change in the setlist content, but the order was slightly scrambled.

Morrissey came on stage dressed in his PVC outfit and opened with the line "Brethren... all my children... so nice to see you... all I can say is thank you!". After set opener "A Swallow On My Neck" he appeared to be surprised of the audience's appreciation and thanked his fans profusely. After "Ouija Board, Ouija Board" he had his customary comment aimed at making sure nobody thought he was wearing leather: "And of course, as you all know, this suit is PVC..." After "Billy Budd" he told the crowd something that sounded like "You seem so low down... irises..."

After "Hairdresser On Fire" Morrissey said "I should say to you that... yearh, I still don't have a record deal so... most of the songs you hear are 55 years old but (crowd cheers)... What did I say?" On a related subject he followed "November Spawned a Monster" with the sarcastic "I know you're really tired of hearing all these songs on MTV and VH1 (crowd cheers)... but there's nothing I can do about that... we'll just have to wait..." After "Half A Person" he asked someone "Are you okay?"

In "Lost" Morrissey slightly changed a few occurrences of a line to "Believe me I'm lost". After that song he announced "Now it's questions and answers time. Does anybody have a question? What's your question? (fan asks question...) How do I like staying in New York? Are you from New York? (fan answers he's from Hoboken) I'd keep that very quiet, if I were you..." Following "Now My Heart Is Full" he removed his shirt and acknowledged the audience's cheers with the line "I understand why you're screaming because it's quite a remarkable body..."

After "I Am Hated For Loving" Morrissey had a 'private' conversation with someone in the audience: "Jim, I want to know why you let your hair grow..." The fan answered that he wanted to look like David Johansen and to that Morrissey replied "Well it's close but he didn't wear spectacles... it's nice to see you..." Then "Meat Is Murder" was introduced with the line "This song deals with our very very basic moral obligations..." and followed with "...or as Gertrude Stein would say: 'murder in the kitchen' - Where is he going?". After a short pause he added "I wish I could actually sing... (to someone in particular) What's that? Throw it!".

Following "Boxers" someone screamed "I love you Morrissey!" and the object of the shout replied "It will pass... next week it will be Limp Bizkit... (crowd boos)... you may boo..." After "The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils" Morrissey changed into yet another fresh shirt and after disposing of the sweaty one in the audience, he joked again about his body: "Don't hate me just because I've got the world's most perfect body..." After a short pause he introduced the following planned number with the words "This song is called 'I Can Have Both'... which is true!"

After the latter title someone else shouted words of love to Morrissey and the object again replied with a self-deprecating comment: "Yeah, what d'you wanna say? (fan: I love you!) You don't really... oh believe me you don't... believe me you don't... if you knew me you'd really hate me..." After "Is it Really So Strange?" he jokingly explained "We just thought we'd throw that one in as the big gimmicky gesture of the night..." Morrissey returned to the stage for the encore wearing his plum velvet jacket and had the following parting words for his fans "Whatever happens, I love you. I know I'm being patchy, but as always you are beautiful and... all I can say is thank you..."

 


An audience recording of the complete set is circulated on bootleg compact discs and in digital format on the internet (recorder: hook). The sound is good, but unfortunately the recording was choppily edited between songs. One version on the internet even lacks the beginning of "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me". This is often seen with fanmade artwork under the title "My Way" (view 1, view 2).

 

Do you have information about this concert? Or do you own an uncirculated recording of it? If yes please contribute and get credited.