MORRISSEY : FRANKLY VULGAR

  1. Intro : Wayward Sisters (Klaus Nomi)
  2. November Spawned A Monster
  3. Alsatian Cousin
  4. Our Frank
  5. The Loop
  6. King Leer
  7. Sister I'm A Poet
  8. Piccadilly Palare
  9. Driving Your Girlfriend Home
  10. We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful

Label : BRP Records

Venue : Pauly Pavillion, UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA

Recording Date : November 1, 1991

Length : 41:39

Quality : Soundboard recording (A+)

Review (Passions Just Like Mine) : "Southern California is notorious for being the scene of the wildest Morrissey concerts and this one didn't fail that reputation. As soon as Morrissey entered stage, it was obvious that the man was in a very special mood. He roared very loudly, something rather surprising for him at the time, then growled a loud "Hello!". Meanwhile his musicians played with a lot of slide and reverb, the result sounding much like the intro to "You're Gonna Need Someone On Your Side", a song that would only come out the following year. This was particularly the case with the new intro for set opener "November Spawned A Monster". Morrissey teased the audience between the first few songs by moaning repeatedly in a very unusual manner. He shrieked loudly during the final notes of "Our Frank". Soon after he tried to stir the audience by throwing tambourine amongst them, but it did not seem to work so before going into "King Leer" he said "Thank you friends... you know that you're fully grown adults and if you sh-sh-sh-sh... if you really want to stay in your seats then that's ok, but if you don't want to stay in your seats, you don't have to..." It took a few seconds, but eventually there was a mass movement of the crowd towards the stage. After "Our Frank", apparently worried that he had gone too far, Morrissey added "Now that we're all out of our seats, we won't stand on anybody's toes will we?". By the time the following song was over many people had already been injured from the pressure or from tripping into the folding chairs. Following "Driving Your Girlfriend Home" Morrissey started introducing the new and yet-to-be-released composition "We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful": "This song is new, and it's called... it's called..." but he never managed to finish what he meant to say. Someone had a word with him and he then announced "I think we're being told that this concert has to end... (crowd boos) well maybe it can continue if we all stand really still..." The band still launched into the planned song, but not before Morrissey successfully introduced it: "This song is new, it's called 'We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful'." They were unfortunately not able to finish it. A few verses into the song Morrissey was escorted off stage. The band continued it as an instrumental for a few bars, then ended it and followed Morrissey. The manager came on stage and announced that the concert would continue only if people would cooperate and help settle everything down. However the crowd kept chanting and didn't collaborate to the authorities' satisfaction. There were too many injured people and the venue management was afraid there would be more if Morrissey went back on, even if the fans calmed down. So after one hour the concert was finally stopped and people were asked to leave the venue. Many fans were obviously upset by this and a few set off fire alarms on their way out. Others rushed to the merchandise stand and stole a reported few thousand dollars of t-shirts, programmes and posters. More people were injured in this melée. The television news people and the police riot gear quickly arrived on the premises, the latter dispersing the remaining troublemakers. It was reported the next day that 48 fans had been injured and that UCLA officials and a concert promoter blamed Morrissey, saying he should not have urged the audience to move in closer. In all, 22 people were treated and released at UCLA Medical Center for a variety of minor injuries, most of them cuts and bruises. 26 others were treated at the scene. After the concert was halted, the promoter said that Morrissey agonized about his mistake and whether he should go back out and talk to the crowd. Morrissey later offered to pay for all the injuries and hired someone to distribute the hundreds of shoes that were found in the venue after the riot."