30 Years Ago: The Smiths @Brixton Academy, London
Excerpt from Johnny Rogan’s Morrissey & Marr: The Severed Alliance
The postponed Artists Against Apartheid concert was rescheduled, without The Fall for 12 December [2016] at London’s Brixton Academy. By that time, Marr was fully recovered [car crash] and the recent outbreaks of gig violence were a distant memory. Few in the audience that evening could have guessed that they were watching The Smiths’ final performance [gig] on British soil [The Smiths offered a five-song set on February 7th (19867) at Italy’s San Remo Festival, a two-song set on April 10th at The Tube and a final appearance at Top Of The Pops two weeks later featuring a miming of ‘Sheila Take A Bow’]. The set began with ‘Ask’, that strangely controversial single which, for different reasons, irked both John Porter and Craig Gannon. A healthy half-dozen tracks from The Queen Is Dead saw The Smiths caught in time, ready to step into a New Year which would actually prove their last. For fans who had followed the tour, there was the welcome addition of two songs fresh to live performance: ‘Shoplifters Of The World Unite’ and ‘Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others’. Morrissey’s vocal inflexions sounded more eccentric than ever, seldom more so than on the surprise medley ‘London/Miserable Lie’. ‘This Night Has Opened My Eyes’, played for the first time since 1984, proved another highlight. Appropriately this pre-yuletide show conjured up the ghosts of Christmas past by ending with ‘Hand In Glove’, the song that had launched the group’s superlative recording career. – Johnny Rogan
The Smiths @Brixton Academy, Final Gig
SETLIST
Ask
Bigmouth Strikes Again
London / Miserable Lie
Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others
The Boy With the Thorn in His Side
Shoplifters of the World Unite
There Is a Light That Never Goes Out
Is It Really So Strange?
Cemetry Gates
This Night Has Opened My Eyes
Still Ill
Panic
/
The Queen Is Dead
//
William, It Was Really Nothing
Hand in Glove
The Smiths @San Remo Festival
The Smiths @The Tube, Final Performance
The Smiths @TOTP, Final Appearance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-8kKH4COvg
