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After a few American warm-up dates, Morrissey really kicked off the Tour Of The Tormentors MMVI with a tour of major Northern European cities. His new album "Ringleader Of The Tormentors" was released during the first week of this leg, so a greater portion of the audience were familiar with the new material.

There was a huge gong behind drummer Matt Walker with the word TORMENTORS on it in what seemed like peel-and-stick decals. The kick drum's resonant head was the Italian flag's tri-partite green, white, and red. Boz also had a double guitar in the Italian flag's colours.

Personnel: Boz Boorer - guitar; Jesse Tobias - guitar and occasional cymbals; Gary Day - bass; Michael Farrell - keyboards (also hits drum with mallet in "Life Is A Pigsty"); Matt Walker - drums. Morrissey also played the occasional maracas.

 


The Boyfriends up to and including Paris, then Kristeen Young in Ireland.

 


- Light blue and dark blue t-shirts with stylized 'M' logo on the chest; 300/270 SEK in Sweden; view
- Tan t-shirt with crest-style Italian flag on a drum, with 'Morrissey' on top and 'ringleader of the tormentors' underneath; 270 SEK in Sweden; view
- Grey t-shirt with the Deutsche Grammophone-style insignia on the chest; box on the back reading "Tour of the Tormentors, MMVI" with tour dates; 270 SEK in Sweden; view
- White women's underwear with navy 'M' logo on the front; 220 SEK in Sweden; view

 


Stinky Toys - "Boozy Creed"
Brian Eno - "Seven Deadly Finns"
Mary Hopkins - "Mother Earth"
Ramones - "Carbona Not Glue"
Olivia Newton-John - "Long Live Love"
New York Dolls - "Bad Detective" (perhaps not every night)
Tommy Körberg - "Judy min vän"
Ramones - "Why Is It Always This Way?"
The Boyfriends - "I Love You" (not on every date)
Monique Melsen - "Pomme, pomme, pomme"
Giorgio Gaber - "La Ballata Del Cerutti"
Smoking Popes - "You'll Never Walk Alone"
Morrissey then came on stage to Jobriath's "What A Pretty". Exit music after the concert was Frank Sinatra's "That's Life". Chopin's Nocturnes were played before this intermission music on certain dates.

Note: Along Morrissey's then interest in the Eurovision Song Contest, songs in the above list by Olivia Newton-John, Tommy Körberg and Monique Melsen were all old Eurovision entries (respectively UK 1974, Sweden 1969 and Luxembourg 1971).

 


French singer Sacha Distel (view original or in situ).

 


The setlist length was of 17 songs on the first half of this leg. It was then augmented to 18 on the second half, except for the final date in Dublin. Morrissey gradually increased the number of songs from his latest album "Ringleader Of The Tormentors" from six songs, to eight, then back down to seven. To the previously played six songs "You Have Killed Me", "The Youngest Was The Most Loved", "I Just Want To See The Boy Happy", "Life Is A Pigsty", "I Will See You In Far Off Places" and "At Last I Am Born", Morrissey added "In The Future When All's Well", re-introduced in Oslo for two dates only. "To Me You Are A Work Of Art" was added in its turn in Malmö, performed for the first time ever. It remained in the set for all dates afterwards.

The four singles from previous album "You Are The Quarry" ("Irish Blood, English Heart", "First Of The Gang To Die", "Let Me Kiss You" and "I Have Forgiven Jesus") were still part of the set, along with b-side "My Life Is A Succession Of People Saying Goodbye", available on that album's deluxe edition. However "I Have Forgiven Jesus" was replaced after just three gigs by "I Like You" from the same album. This was dropped in its turn after just one night to make space for a new live introduction, a future b-side, Morrissey's cover of Magazine's classic "A Song From Under The Floorboards".

Morrissey's solo back catalogue also supplied "Reader Meet Author", played every night except the two ones when "In The Future When All's Well" was on the setlist, and "Trouble Loves Me", played everywhere except in Malmö where two new songs were debuted. The Smiths-era catalogue was represented by "Still Ill", "Girlfriend In A Coma", "How Soon Is Now?" and standard encore (bar final date) "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me".

Here is the number of times each song was performed on this leg, in descending order of frequency. This is based on 10 concerts.

At Last I Am Born - 10
First Of The Gang To Die - 10
Girlfriend In A Coma - 10
How Soon Is Now? - 10
I Just Want To See The Boy Happy - 10
I Will See You In Far Off Places - 10
Irish Blood, English Heart - 10
Let Me Kiss You - 10
Life Is A Pigsty - 10
My Life Is A Succession Of People Saying Goodbye - 10
Still Ill - 10
The Youngest Was The Most Loved - 10
You Have Killed Me - 10
Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me - 9
Trouble Loves Me - 9
Reader Meet Author - 8
A Song From Under The Floor Boards - 6
To Me You Are A Work Of Art - 6
I Have Forgiven Jesus - 3
In The Future When All's Well - 2
I Like You - 1

Click here for more tour statistics.

 


In "Still Ill", which came with a longer intro than most performances from the Smiths days, Morrissey sang "England's a swine and it owes me a living" and "there are brighter sides to life and I should know because I've seen them and very very often". In "You Have Killed Me" he sang "Pasolini is me / Fellini you'll be", "...Fellini you'll never be" or "...Fellini I'll be", and sometimes "Tony Visconti is me / Anna Magnani you'll never be".

"Reader Meet Author" was adapted to the new century by the change of one line to "The year 2000, it hasn't changed anyone here". Morrissey also often sang "you hear the way this sad voice sings", which probably implied that the author in question listens to Morrissey. In "At Last I Am Born" he usually sang "vegetarians know" instead of "vulgarians know". In "I Will See You In Far Off Places" Morrissey changed lines to "It's so easy for us to be here together, but it's so hard for the flesh to combine" (or similar variations of). For the first half of this leg, the final line in "Girlfriend In A Coma" was changed to "Let me whisper my final goodbye, I know it's serious". Morrissey then reverted to the original lyrics.

In half-tour live addition "In The Future When All's Well", Morrissey changed the line "Something must have gone right" to "Something must have gone wrong". In "Trouble Loves Me", Morrissey made many minor lyrical changes, including "somebody hold me" and "somebody kill me" instead of "otherwise hold me" and "otherwise kill me", "which is only the way it should be" instead of "which is only as it should be" and "to chide me but never to guide me". But more importantly the song was always preceded by a different piano intro of a well known local song. See individual dates for details. At the beginning of "Life Is A Pigsty" Boz played a glass of water. At the end of that song Morrissey sometimes replaced "I'm falling in love again" by "I am in love again". Trumpet was added during the bridge of "Let Me Kiss You".

 


At this point in time, nothing from these dates has been made available on official releases.

 


The Paris and Killarney concerts were filmed by fans and both these recordings are circulated on bootlegs DVDs and in digital format on the internet. The Paris show is the best option if one must choose between the two. The left balcony footage is of rather good quality, the camera is fixed and the sound is average. This is available in raw form, or with some other footage and photos mixed in here and there. The Killarney recording is clear, but rather shaky and lacks most of "I Will See You In Far Off Place" and the beginning of "To Me You Are A Work Of Art".

 


Fair to good audience recordings of four complete concerts of this leg of the Tour Of The Tormentors MMVI are in circulation at this point. These are recordings of Malmö, Paris (lifted from a video recording), Killarney and the first of the two Dublin dates. Malmö will be appealing for "In The Future When All's Well" which was not played on the three other dates. However "Trouble Loves Me" and "Reader Meet Author" were not included in the set there. Collectors will have to get their hands on any of the three other available recordings for the latter two songs. Unfortunately none of the above feature "I Have Forgiven Jesus" which was performed on the first three dates only, and "I Like You" which was done in Oslo only.

For completists, four songs plus two half-songs are also in circulation for Stockholm. Completists should also be aware that two different recordings are circulated for Dublin.