NEW Live Colour vinyl LP Featuring The Smiths Pressed on purple vinyl, this album showcases the Smiths’ stellar concert at the Theater de Meervaart, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on 21st April 1984, during the band’s The Smiths Tour.
This concert, put together to celebrate Dutch music magazine Vinyl’s fifth anniversary, was the Smiths’ first show in a country where the main language wasn’t English. Everything went well but Morrissey sounded rather reserved at first. He was probably intimidated by the language barrier, but by the end of the show he appeared to be more comfortable. He did say a few words in between songs but didn’t really alter lyrics the way he sometimes did in England where the audience was more familiar with the Smiths’ material.
“Miserable Lie”, “I Don’t Owe You Anything” and “These Things Take Time” returned to the setlist. They were rarely performed at this point in time. The latter two titles were almost at the end of their live career.
Featured here are a number of The Smiths’ most celebrated songs such as ‘Hand in Glove’, ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’, ‘This Charming Man’, ‘This Night Has Opened My Eyes’, ‘Still Ill’, ‘Handsome Devil’ and more.
During their recent tour of the UK “Hand In Glove” had been the standard set opener and its intro extended by a few bars. For some reason, even if the song was still opener in Amsterdam, the normal intro was brought back. After the latter number Morrissey introduced the next planned one by saying: “Thank you, this song is called ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’.” The song had just been recorded and it was planned to be released as a single one month later, so this live performance was much closer to the studio version we are familiar with.
“Girl Afraid”, which was next on the setlist and planned to be released as the latter single’s b-side, had also just been recorded in the 4-week break between the end of the recent UK tour and this concert. So not only was “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” closer to its definitive version, but so was “Girl Afraid”. In the instrumental bridge in the middle of the song, Morrissey hummed “Mmmmm that mistake again”, as he does on the studio version. He had never done this before. “This Charming Man” was introduced as being “…a song about a bicycle.” Before going into “Barbarism Begins At Home” Morrissey told the audience “Coincidentally, it’s a great privilege to be here… so…”
Before introducing “Miserable Lie” Morrissey enquired “Can anybody here speak English?… So?” The following planned number was “Still Ill” and it was simply introduced with a shout of its title. Then the next one was introduced with the line “This song is called ‘I Don’t Owe You Anything’…” When the band returned to the stage for the first encore Morrissey shouted “Handsome Devil”! before the band launched into the song. When the band returned to the stage for the second encore, Morrissey’s final words to the audience were “Thank you, we didn’t expect this, thank you…”
The Smiths live at the Meervaart Theatre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 21st of April 1984. Full Show. 0:01 – Hand In Glove 2:50 – Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now 6:14 – Girl Afraid 9:08 – This Charming Man 12:08 – Barbarism Begins At Home 17:52 – This Night Has Opened My Eyes 21:20 – Miserable Lie 26:12 – Still Ill 29:54 – I Don’t Owe You Anything 34:21 – What Difference Does It Make? Encore #1: 38:53 – Handsome Devil 41:41 – You’ve Got Everything Now Encore #2: 46:12 – These Things Take Time
Interesting details about this show: – This was the first and only time The Smiths would play in The Netherlands.
The Fat Angel Sings 