Sweet and Tender Hooligan - Morrissey The Smiths

Morrissey video I edited together from his Dec 1988 show. First Morrissey gig/last Smiths gig, 22 December 1988, Wolverhampton Civic Hall Hope you enjoy it. Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before, Disappointed, Interesting Drug, Suedehead, The Last Of The Famous International Playboys, Sister I’m A Poet, Death At One’s Elbow, Sweet And Tender Hooligan , 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 lead guitarist. The setlist featured a mix of Morrissey songs with Smiths tracks from 1987, so none of it had been performed in front of a live audience before. Admission was free to anyone wearing a Smiths or Morrissey shirt. Only half 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“. Thanks to: