35th anniversary of Wolverhampton gig (December 22, 2023)

Dec 22 / 1988 / 35 years!
Crazy

 

[Johnnie Ray]

The people who were lucky enough to attend this enchanting concert are the real lucky ones!

View attachment 99208

The footage of happy fans reaching the stage and not missing their chance to hug Morrissey is pure madness, but I love it. He's in great shape and good-looking here, he's matured; and I like this shiny black pullover better than his "gold" shirt at Madstock in 1992.

Legend. Never looked better and he left them wanting MORE.

 

[Johnnie Ray]

Craig Gannon is a brilliant guitarist but he always looks as if playing guitar on stage is the worst possible job you could ever have.

That's what makes him so fascinating to me. I saw The Smiths in '86 in Detroit and I had read that they had hired him, a guitarist from Aztec Camera to play bass to replace Andy and that Andy was now back in the band so Craig got switched to second guitar for Johnny. Anyway, I was struck by how young Craig looked and to your point, I couldn't tell if he was sullen or scared out of his mind but he and the band were absolutely amazing and it still stands easily as the best concert I have ever seen in my life.

 

[Me again]

Same here. Back in the days pre social media where Morrissey's every thought wasn't posted on the internet. He was a true enigma and as I always say, Morrissey's career from 1988 to 1995 was damn near perfect.

Agreed, although Kill Uncle is still a dog of a record. But it's a testament to his power and bravery back then that he went completely off-message and headed down the rockabilly route. A very risky move, and not only did he pull it off but he also managed to save his career from the brink and write IMO his finest solo record (YA). Yep - 88 to 95 was absolutely peak Moz. He looked his best in those years as well, and the live shows were incredible.

 

[MozIsGod]

That's what makes him so fascinating to me. I saw The Smiths in '86 in Detroit and I had read that they had hired him, a guitarist from Aztec Camera to play bass to replace Andy and that Andy was now back in the band so Craig got switched to second guitar for Johnny. Anyway, I was struck by how young Craig looked and to your point, I couldn't tell if he was sullen or scared out of his mind but he and the band were absolutely amazing and it still stands easily as the best concert I have ever seen in my life.

I've always loved "Rank" and I think Craig is a big reason why.

I've always wondered why Craig wasn't contacted as a potential Johnny replacement in '87. I know they wanted Kevin Armstrong and even tried out Ivor Perry, but I think Craig would have made more sense being that he was already in the band and as far as I know, he only fell out with Marr when he left in '86.

 

[DagenhamDan]

Agreed, although Kill Uncle is still a dog of a record. But it's a testament to his power and bravery back then that he went completely off-message and headed down the rockabilly route. A very risky move, and not only did he pull it off but he also managed to save his career from the brink and write IMO his finest solo record (YA). Yep - 88 to 95 was absolutely peak Moz. He looked his best in those years as well, and the live shows were incredible.

Not a dog, just an unloved pet maybe?

 

[Anonymous]

I've always loved "Rank" and I think Craig is a big reason why.

I've always wondered why Craig wasn't contacted as a potential Johnny replacement in '87. I know they wanted Kevin Armstrong and even tried out Ivor Perry, but I think Craig would have made more sense being that he was already in the band and as far as I know, he only fell out with Marr when he left in '86.

Craig filed a lawsuit against the Smiths for non-payment for his time in the band. I've read there was an offer from Morrissey to join his band if he dropped the lawsuit but he didn't. Craig eventually won that lawsuit.

 

[ZOOM FROM GLOOM]

I wore my video of Hulmerist out near enough, used to watch it all the bloody time, at the time Morrissey's only official video you could buy.

Right or wrong, I think it informed many future show attendees/fans as to what was ‘allowed’ at Morrissey shows when he finally toured in 91. An operators manual of sorts.

 

[ZOOM FROM GLOOM]

Not a dog, just an unloved pet maybe?

You mean, like a homeless chihuahua?

 

[some dizzy whore]

tshirt mate? thanks mate

 

[Vesper Nocturne]

Right or wrong, I think it informed many future show attendees/fans as to what was ‘allowed’ at Morrissey shows when he finally toured in 91. A operators manual of sorts.

Lol! Definitely falling into the category of always funniest when/because it’s true. I mean you bring up a good point, it 100% is the case.

Reading this thread and thinking back to hulmerist on vhs days just reminded me of those days. Omg it was like barren wasteland of all the wrong kinds of weird, but then there would be little Smiths mirages over here and through the parched desert a Morrissey mirage over there somewhere, lol.

The November video is basically an entire video of Morrissey mirages, that’s why it was so great!

I think your post is helping me retrospectively psychoanalyze some of my behavior. I mean i truly never spent even a minute thinking about your user-manual theory until you just typed it, but you did just make me deja vu my first Morrissey concert really clearly. I was like 15, lol!!!! Wait, i need to type out this whole anecdote now because it was really the absolute f***ing all time WORST thing ever!

So back in the 90s i remember tickets always going on sale months before. And people would physically go to ticketmaster locations, and wait in line before they opened. And then you would cross your fingers really hard while praying that they were dot matrix printing your tickets out fast enough that you would get first or second or whatever row. But, NO INTERNETS, so you also basically never really knew anything, about anything, ever.

So of course i had no driver’s license, no ANYTHING because i was too young, and when i heard tickets were going on sale i lost my everloving MIND, and i informed my also 15 year old best friend that we had to go sleep out for tickets the night before they were going on sale. So at this point, this already entails like, sneaking out of the house when underage, with no phone, no credit cards, no car, no internet, no public transport ever. Just 15 year old me! Omg, lol. So course we end up in THE WORST, most dangerous, most gun crime ridden ghetto area of the city ever known to human beings on planet earth. Two super cute 15 year old girls. . But there is kind of nothing where we found ourselves. Because i have zero recollection of how we got there, and then we were super lost and it was nothing but all burnt out cars and burnt out buildings, and crazy scary criminals circling us in their lowriders.

Anyway! So, miracle of all miracles, we eventually see a police car! This is probably 2am. So we ran up to the police and they stopped and they were like “what are you doing? You shouldn’t be out here.” He goes “it’s really dangerous”. Yeah? i couldn’t tell.

Anyway so to make a long story shorter, it was already really scary how that night went wrong, and then the police said that NO, they wouldn’t drive us anywhere and then they drove off and left us there in the middle of the night, with nothing around or open for miles! And no phones. And we were literally kids. What the even f***.

Anyway! So i don’t remember how we got out of there at all, but we did manage to get to a ticketmaster by something like 11am the next day. They were already open and selling tickets when we got there, so we were like “oh no! we stayed out all night and almost got murdered on barren wasteland in burnt out cars for nothing?!” But it turned out to kind of be ok. I think we had something like 10th row. So then there’s like a big sigh of relief, and then it’s back to regularly scheduled programming for a couple of months because the concert was still ages away.

SO. Finally. Fast forward to this concert. It’s 2 or 3 months later and 15 year old me has had like 2 or 3 full months of being SO happy that i still managed to get a great ticket and that this was going to be sooo magical and blah blah blah and so i’m standing there in the venue and i give my ticket to the ticket attendant, and then he says these sombre words to me and the entire floor fell out from under my entire 15 year old world. He said to me “Your ticket is for upstairs.” WHAT??! Noooooooo!!!!

Anyway the point of my anecdote is that even though this is not a stage diving story, the user manual must have somehow been totally emblazoned on my brain already, because otherwise when the lights went down, how did i know what to do? Like how did i know what i wanted to do, if it was something i’d never done before in my entire life, (or since)?

So i got to the back of the main floor, and even last last last last last last row, even behind the last row, seemed infinitely better than where i had started 15 minutes before.

Oh boy. Also only funniest when it’s true. So when i got to the last row on the main floor of the theatre i dropped to the ground and (maybe 15 year olds truly have NO brains yet, at all?) I spent the ENTIRE time while the opening act AND during intermission, literally dragging my body on the ground, underneath allllllll the rows of chairs in the entire theater. Like on my stomach. Face down on the ground. In a dress. Omfg.

OMFG. So i’m doing my super weird maneuver praying that it works. I didn’t come up again until Morrissey was halfway through the first song and i literally popped up in the middle of the first row of people practically right then, just as the concert was starting.

Wait, this story still gets soooo much better, lol. It was the 90s so i was in a black babydoll dress. By the time i dragged myself on my stomach across the entire depth and length of the all the rows of seats in the entire theatre, my dress looked like someone had tried to hack it off me with a pair of broken scissors, and i had SO MUCH gross people’s chewed up CHEWING GUM stuck IN MY FARKING HAIR. Oh my god.

I credit my first Morrissey concert with teaching me so much more about life than anything else that followed ever could have. Lolol. Facts.

Oh wait, i almost forgot. So the concert was shit hot. Annnnnnnd, then i woke up the next day with every inch of me completely covered in chicken pox. Lol. Which was like, the actual, literal WORST

 

[Surface]

I've always loved "Rank" and I think Craig is a big reason why.

I've always wondered why Craig wasn't contacted as a potential Johnny replacement in '87. I know they wanted Kevin Armstrong and even tried out Ivor Perry, but I think Craig would have made more sense being that he was already in the band and as far as I know, he only fell out with Marr when he left in '86.

I saw The Smiths with and without Craig, without him the sound was quite weak but with him they sounded tremendous.

 

[ZOOM FROM GLOOM]

Lol! Definitely falling into the category of always funniest when/because it’s true. I mean you bring up a good point, it 100% is the case.

Reading this thread and thinking back to hulmerist on vhs days just reminded me of those days. Omg it was like barren wasteland of all the wrong kinds of weird, but then there would be little Smiths mirages over here and through the parched desert a Morrissey mirage over there somewhere, lol.

The November video is basically an entire video of Morrissey mirages, that’s why it was so great!

I think your post is helping me retrospectively psychoanalyze some of my behavior. I mean i truly never spent even a minute thinking about your user-manual theory until you just typed it, but you did just make me deja vu my first Morrissey concert really clearly. I was like 15, lol!!!! Wait, i need to type out this whole anecdote now because it was really the absolute f***ing all time WORST thing ever!

So back in the 90s i remember tickets always going on sale months before. And people would physically go to ticketmaster locations, and wait in line before they opened. And then you would cross your fingers really hard while praying that they were dot matrix printing your tickets out fast enough that you would get first or second or whatever row. But, NO INTERNETS, so you also basically never really knew anything, about anything, ever.

So of course i had no driver’s license, no ANYTHING because i was too young, and when i heard tickets were going on sale i lost my everloving MIND, and i informed my also 15 year old best friend that we had to go sleep out for tickets the night before they were going on sale. So at this point, this already entails like, sneaking out of the house when underage, with no phone, no credit cards, no car, no internet, no public transport ever. Just 15 year old me! Omg, lol. So course we end up in THE WORST, most dangerous, most gun crime ridden ghetto area of the city ever known to human beings on planet earth. Two super cute 15 year old girls.. But there is kind of nothing where we found ourselves. Because i have zero recollection of how we got there, and then we were super lost and it was nothing but all burnt out cars and burnt out buildings, and crazy scary criminals circling us in their lowriders.

Anyway! So, miracle of all miracles, we eventually see a police car! This is probably 2am. So we ran up to the police and they stopped and they were like “what are you doing? You shouldn’t be out here.” He goes “it’s really dangerous”. Yeah? i couldn’t tell.

Anyway so to make a long story shorter, it was already really scary how that night went wrong, and then the police said that NO, they wouldn’t drive us anywhere and then they drove off and left us there in the middle of the night, with nothing around or open for miles! And no phones. And we were literally kids. What the even f***.

Anyway! So i don’t remember how we got out of there at all, but we did manage to get to a ticketmaster by something like 11am the next day. They were already open and selling tickets when we got there, so we were like “oh no! we stayed out all night and almost got murdered on barren wasteland in burnt out cars for nothing?!” But it turned out to kind of be ok. I think we had something like 10th row. So then there’s like a big sigh of relief, and then it’s back to regularly scheduled programming for a couple of months because the concert was still ages away.

SO. Finally. Fast forward to this concert. It’s 2 or 3 months later and 15 year old me has had like 2 or 3 full months of being SO happy that i still managed to get a great ticket and that this was going to be sooo magical and blah blah blah and so i’m standing there in the venue and i give my ticket to the ticket attendant, and then he says these sombre words to me and the entire floor fell out from under my entire 15 year old world. He said to me “Your ticket is for upstairs.” WHAT??! Noooooooo!!!!

Anyway the point of my anecdote is that even though this is not a stage diving story, the user manual must have somehow been totally emblazoned on my brain already, because otherwise when the lights went down, how did i know what to do? Like how did i know what i wanted to do, if it was something i’d never done before in my entire life, (or since)?

So i got to the back of the main floor, and even last last last last last last row, even behind the last row, seemed infinitely better than where i had started 15 minutes before.

Oh boy. Also only funniest when it’s true. So when i got to the last row on the main floor of the theatre i dropped to the ground and (maybe 15 year olds truly have NO brains yet, at all?) I spent the ENTIRE time while the opening act AND during intermission, literally dragging my body on the ground, underneath allllllll the rows of chairs in the entire theater. Like on my stomach. Face down on the ground. In a dress. Omfg.

OMFG. So i’m doing my super weird maneuver praying that it works. I didn’t come up again until Morrissey was halfway through the first song and i literally popped up in the middle of the first row of people practically right then, just as the concert was starting.

Wait, this story still gets soooo much better, lol. It was the 90s so i was in a black babydoll dress. By the time i dragged myself on my stomach across the entire depth and length of the all the rows of seats in the entire theatre, my dress looked like someone had tried to hack it off me with a pair of broken scissors, and i had SO MUCH gross people’s chewed up CHEWING GUM stuck IN MY FARKING HAIR. Oh my god.

I credit my first Morrissey concert with teaching me so much more about life than anything else that followed ever could have. Lolol. Facts.

Oh wait, i almost forgot. So the concert was shit hot. Annnnnnnd, then i woke up the next day with every inch of me completely covered in chicken pox. Lol. Which was like, the actual, literal WORST

if only all solo posts were like yours above, thank you.

 

[Vesper Nocturne]

if only all solo posts were like yours above, thank you.

I have sooooo many more also super funny ones!! Sooooo many, and sooooo much fun! I am 700% into my own nostalgia. And then i am 700% on top of that 700%, even more looking forward to (my) next time!

 

[goinghome]

I have sooooo many more also super funny ones!! Sooooo many, and sooooo much fun! I am 700% into my own nostalgia. And then i am 700% on top of that 700%, even more looking forward to (my) next time!

“Philosophy is really nostalgia, the desire to be at home.” – Novalis


A Danish person will not be nostalgic about old Beatles songs

But a Norwegian wood.

 

[Johnnie Ray]

Not a dog, just an unloved pet maybe?

Kill Uncle is a special album for me. The first song I heard off it was "King Leer" late at night on a college radio station. I freaking loved it! Obviously, the live performances made those songs, "Live at KROQ" EP is pure gold.

 

[Simolysmiths]

Why was the gig so short??? Any ideas?

Well I was there and got in. Kipped out 23 hours on the pavement and I can not tell you how good that 45 min gig as. The answer to your questionnaire n was that it was meant to be a video promo for Playboy's but it went a little bit tits up with all the stage invasions

 

[SuedeMoz]

Looking back, Morrissey didn't do his first solo tour until over 2 years after Wolverhampton. For those there... was there a sense of... ok, he'll be touring soon as a solo artist now? How surprising was it seeing Mike, Andy, and Craig in the band?

 

[celibate]

tshirt mate? thanks mate

Free gig only must was wearing a t shirt of the Smiths. One sees at the video when fans pushing to come finally into the Wolverhampton Civic Hall... doormen question was 'T shirt mate' if not good to see, people standing more day half a day in the cold, so everytime he could not see he said ' T shirt mate' at least on Hulmerist the VHS about it plus the clips he had made from his singles.

 

[Anonymous of Manchester]

Right or wrong, I think it informed many future show attendees/fans as to what was ‘allowed’ at Morrissey shows when he finally toured in 91. An operators manual of sorts.

You mean, they just copied what they saw? As that’s exactly what happened.

It had already begun with The Smiths.

 

[DagenhamDan]

Kill Uncle is a special album for me. The first song I heard off it was "King Leer" late at night on a college radio station. I freaking loved it! Obviously, the live performances made those songs, "Live at KROQ" EP is pure gold.

Indeed, its a great album made at a strange time for Moz but it holds up even 32 years later, Driving your Girlfriend Home, Sing Your Life, Theres A Place In Hell etc all songs up there with his best IMO. The KROQ version of Sing Your Life was/is fantastic, if he had had Boz and Alain etc for Kill Uncle it would have sounded a whole lot different, and would have lost its charm i think.