New York City - Hammerstein Ballroom (Nov. 26 1997)

Summary by Robert Engstrom

The Popes went on at about 7:30ish, as most people were still showing up to the venue. They seemed to be pretty well received, though many unruly people were shouting "Morrissey, Morrissey" every time they ended a song.

Somewhere shortly after 9:00 Moz hit the stage, in about the same fashion as all other shows, "The Operation" drum solo carrying him in. He started with a "Hello Sexy" before the opening song. At the end he gave a nice "Hello New Jersey" which elicited a decent amount of anger from the New Yorkers. He carried his way through the next song, and in preparation for the third song, something technical went wrong (based on previous shows, I think Boz broke too many strings on the guitar he needed, and they hadn't had time to fully restring it) So they moved on to the next song, after Moz asking what was wrong a few times. They then appeared to have the guitar done, so the next song they seemed to pick up where they were supposed to.

At one point someone holding a book in the air actually got Moz's attention as he asked what it was, and asked for it. Someone closer thought he was talking to them, and about the flowers, but he mumbled something like "No, not that, those are of no value" and then the book went flying to the stage where Moz managed to catch about 2 pages as the rest ripped apart. A little later on, he stopped to thank the crowd for the entire tour, something to the effect of "Thank you very much, this would not have been possible without all of you." Again, the typical security issue arose and Moz started taunting a bouncer chanting "Ugly, ugly man" numerous times, then walked off stage. After "Shoplifters", I waited to see if, since this was the last show, that maybe there would be another encore. But to my dismay the house lights went on, and "Interlude" started up. As I turned to look towards the exit, I saw Spencer walk onto the stage, and with that the whole band came out. Moz grabbed the mic, and said some things, however "Interlude" was still on and the sound guy didn't turn up the mic volume quickly enough. With that they broke into "Satan Rejected My Soul".

Overall, I only got to see 4 shows of the tour, but they were all worth the travelling and such. I hope that this isn't the last US tour, but who knows. Till then.