7 November 2009
Liverpool (UK), Echo Arena

This Charming Man
Black Cloud
The British portion of the Swords tour ended on a bad note. Morrissey came on stage and greeted the audience by saying "It's Saturday night, it's raining, it's Liverpool, and its perfect..." before going into set opener "This Charming Man". The atmosphere was quite good, Morrissey looked in top shape and the crowd was up for it. Unfortunately halfway into the second song, "Black Cloud", as he was shaking the hand of a fan in the front row, a plastic water bottle thrown in the direction of the stage hit Morrissey on the head, showering him with its contents. The singer looked stunned for half a second, passed a hand in his wet hair, then said "goodbye" and just walked off.

As this was not the first time that something of the sort happened to Morrissey, most people thought that he would return after having dried himself and perhaps changed into a dry shirt. Then security guards shouted that the culprit should come forward otherwise the gig would be haulted. People in the middle started pointing and shouting abuse at who they thought was the culprit and after about 10 minutes someone was pulled out (however in retrospect it appears someone else came forward, perhaps to save a friend who would still be able to see the rest of the show). After a bit more time someone came on stage and said that Morrissey would not be coming back as he had been hit by a bottle. Then the house lights went on, signalling that the show was over.

So for the second time in two weeks a concert was aborted after having just started, leaving fans bitterly disappointed. In Swindon Morrissey had collapsed and had to be rushed to the hospital. In Liverpool it was a completely different reason, but it took the wind out of Morrissey's motivation and he would only resume the tour two days later as it moved to mainland Europe.

 


A good audience recording of the complete 2-song set is circulated in audio digital format on the internet (recorder: Burton Bootlegger). The existence of a second audience recording is suspected. The complete 5 minutes of the show can be viewed on Youtube.

 

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