"I went to Lowell and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. . ."
by Suzanne Schroeder

originally posted on the tour discussion board, reprinted with permission

Just kidding.

I feel like I'm now entitled to make a long, very boring account of my trip... just to show my dedication. For weeks now, I have been trying to find a suitable show to go to. I'm not going into the details of how I missed out on other shows, I had been worrying about this for the longest. I have been having nothing but bad luck (not just in this, but everywhere) so I felt like I was entitled to get to see the show somewhere. I arranged the flight, but had a true bitch of a time trying to find someone to fill in for me at work. It wasn't that they were being lazy, but because they had other obligations. So, I got on the phone and arranged something. One guy was even nice enough to come in and babysit the broadcast board for one hour, at 5 in the morning, while I left (he saved me from paying $500 more for a ticket) so tonight when everyone says their prayers, remember to say "Lord, bless Russel and Eddie for being great guys." No, better yet, just pray directly to them.

I got to Lowell strictly on my bad sense of direction. I couldn't find the auditorium, so I stopped at more than one place trying to buy a map. Finally, one guy at a convenience store told me that they only sold maps in book stores. What the hell? That's the purpose of gas stations. Looks like New England has yet to be invaded by those tacky McDonald's/Texaco places. Good for you. To get back to this story, this guy then basically drew a bunch of lines on the cardboard from a Marlboro box and expected me to find my way around. It wasn't until I got lost from that and looped back around that I found the place. I was surprised to find that it looked like a city hall, or a court house. In general, though, Lowell is a beautiful place. I had no idea that New England looked like that. It was culture shock, really. I wanted to stay for a while, but since I couldn't do better timewise, I was happy with this. Jack Kerouac was born there, which I didn't figure out until I saw the park named after him, then I remembered that I read he was born in Massachusetts (coincidentally, I had thrown a copy of "On The Road" in my bag, not even knowing about it).

I checked into the one hotel in Lowell which happened to be directly behind the auditorium. I went to the concert and ran into some nice people from New York, but I had to leave them when I found out that cameras weren't permitted. Yeah, that seems dumb for me to try, but I could have sworn on the Ticketmaster site that it said they were permitted, and I might as well take a chance.

Too bad people missed the Smoking Popes. It was half full and people weren't paying much attention, but yes they were a good group. I can see why everyone says the lead singer is a knockoff of Morrissey. In singing style only, however, could the comparison be drawn. the sound wasn't that great for them, so you could barely make out what he was singing, but it looked like the guy running the board was having a great time. I'm trying to figure out the significance of the Christmas tree near the board.

After everything was set up for Morrissey, everyone in the auditorium was being faked out by the intermission music thinking that it was the drum solo to the Operation (what a great idea for an opener! I made that suggestion 2 years ago on one of the newsgroups that it should be used in that manner, so it wasn't an original thought to be sure). They came out with "Do Your Best And Don't Worry." The sound seemed much better this time around. I wasn't too close to the stage, so mostly they looked like shadows (especially Spencer). It seemed like a tight group. "Hold On To Your Friends" was more rockabilly than on the album. Moz's voice was in good shape, it seemed, until he got into "Ambitious Outsiders" which seemed a little hoarse. I wondered if he was sick, and then later he said "I have the flu, can you tell? Do you care? No, you don't care." That was about the extent of the stage patter. It was mostly thank you's, and halfway through asked if there were "any messages for anyone back in England."

...um....

Maybe he limited it because the crowd really didn't need any more encouragement. At the beginning, I was wondering why this crowd was tame, and then finally he was pulled down while shaking someone's hand a few songs in. The security was on it. Especially the ones in the wings. They could spot someone trying to come on early on and dragged off more than one person kicking and screaming like they were being taken to the gas chamber. He teased one girl who was being dragged off by dancing slowly up to her then shaking her hand. A few people did manage to get a few hugs. But it was starting to get wild during "Roy's Keen" when I think maybe about 5 people were dragged off in that one song, but it calmed down after that a bit... until the very end, of course.

I read that someone here thought that "Trouble Loves me" and "Now My Heart is Full" were the highlights. I agree with that 100%. In the middle of the show, I got really depressed because I went all the way to Boston for this show and it was dawning on me that it was going to end soon, but "Trouble" really pulled me out of that. I really smiled at that. And especially for "NMHIF." It was a wonderful experience, and was glad that the song (was it intentional, or was it because I was living in slow motion dreamland?) went on longer than the album.

After that, the show ends. Everyone wants an encore.

They dutifully come out and launch into "Shoplifters" and that's where the problems began. The stage invasion was out of hand, and the song was stopped about a minute into it. I don't know what this one guy did, but I saw that while he was being dragged off, Boz was shouting at him. Morrissey finally had about 5 people on him at once and had to immediately leave the stage. The band left all pissed off, and people in the audience started booing. Not at the band, but at those morons who did it. I know why those people did it, but I don't think that doing it in such a manner was exactly the best show of love. Do people even consider that someone could get hurt in such a melee? Probably not. I think all they were thinking was that "I should hurry up and do this before some security guard drags me off." And they become blind to everything else.

After the show, I tried to see him take off, but mistakenly thought the Limos were for him. They were for some other random people, and by the time I figured this out, I walked around to the side and saw everyone waving the bus off.

Arrggh!!!!!

I went back to the hotel very depressed that I didn't even get a good look at him. It was all over so quickly.

In the end, I'm happy that I went since I really didn't want this gnawing at me anymore. I don't want to be sitting around when I'm 70 regretting missed opportunities. Maybe it was my grandmother's funeral that really inspired that. She lived life until the end, and I figured that maybe I should do that for once in my life. Most people I know don't really understand why I would fly out half way across the country to do something like this, but it is what I wanted. We all have our personal journeys, don't we? I wanted to live up to my word when I said I would be there in some form. I feel like he gave something to me, and it is the very least I could do.