I really don’t go to a lot of concerts, but so far this year, I have tickets to see Black Sabbath (at Back to the Beginning), Pantera and Morrissey. I’m probably the only person in the world with a ticket to all three of those shows (except maybe for Phil Anselmo, who is himself a fan of The Smiths and Morrissey), but then again, my taste in music has always been quite eclectic. On this site, I try to focus on stuff other collectors might like too, because if I started talking about the weirder parts of my collection, I think I would lose a lot of people. Then again, I’m not making any money here, so part of me thinks I should just talk about whatever I want.
I’ll be seeing Morrissey at the first stop on his new world tour, which happens to be in Reno, Nevada. Right now, it looks like only about half of the tickets are sold, so if you happen to frequent Reno, you should probably check that out. I have to admit I’m a bit worried he might cancel, considering that almost every other date is close to being, or already is sold out. Seeing how he did cancel the last scheduled Reno performance, one of the leading theories to explain the lack of sales is fear that he might cancel again. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what happens, but when Moz does show up, it’s always a good time and worth the effort.
I’m glad that the people at Casino Records are also apparently Morrissey fans, since we do get some good Moz and The Smiths releases from time to time. This newest one is called Drinkin’ & Smokin’ Essential (In Santiago’s Biggest Toilet), and it’s a good one. The name comes from a line Morrissey says during the show, which is something like “Welcome to Santiago’s biggest toilet! Drinking and smoking tonight are essential! No more jokes…” If you think the crowd might be offended by this, you would be wrong. In fact, they are going absolutely insane, which is standard at any Morrissey performance. I would even venture to say that this is an above average crowd, which makes for a fantastic vinyl release.
As usual, the production quality from Casino Records is very high. I’m not really used to getting single LPs from them though, so that part almost felt weird. The sleeve has a nice glossy finish, and the artwork is crisp and clear with cool Moz imagery. The labels also have nice cool artwork and clearly display the track names and sides. Drinkin’ and Smokin’ comes pressed on either blue or red wax, and each copy is housed in a resealable plastic outer sleeve with a numbered hype sticker indicating the color. There are only 200 copies of each, so 400 numbered copies released worldwide. As usual, I had to get both, because that’s just what I do these days.
Broadcast Recording – Estadio Victor Jara, Santiago, Chile – 28th March 2000
A1 Intro ~ On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (John Barry)
A2 Hairdresser On Fire
A3 Alma Matters
A4 Ouija Board
A5 Now My Heart Is Full
A6 Boy Racer
A7 The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get
B1 Speedway
B2 Meat Is Murder
B3 Half A Person
B4 Break Up The Family
B5 Tomorrow
B6 Shoplifters Of The World
B7 Outro ~ My Way (Frank Sinatra)
As you can see, the setlist for this show is excellent and has some deep cuts. It never fails that many fans (mostly Smiths fans expecting a Smiths themed show) who attend Morrissey concerts incessantly complain about the setlist. It sounds like this particular audience was quite receptive to the material, but I’d bet if the show took place anywhere else, people would have been a bit disappointed. Really though, the concert itself had five Smiths covers, which is two more than I’m used to hearing him play at shows nowadays. As I have stated before, this is quite fine with me, since I really do prefer to hear him play his solo work. I think he’s played “Shoplifters” every single time I’ve seen him live, so he must really like that one.
It must be said that this pressing is not the full show, and we don’t get all five of those Smiths tracks here. In fact, its missing six songs in total, including “Is It Really So Strange” (The Smiths), “I Am Hated For Loving”, “November Spawned A Monster”, “The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils”, “Billy Budd”, and “Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me” (The Smiths). I find some of the choices of what was cut quite inexplicable. Obviously, some of the tracks were eliminated simply for time and in an effort to make this fit on a single LP, but to cut two of the five Smiths songs including the encore of “Last Night”, as well as the fantastic solo track “November Spawned A Monster” is just bizarre to me. However, we are still left with a cool Moz setlist that fans are bound to enjoy, and if I hadn’t just told you what was missing, you probably would have been quite happy with things the way they are. The editing sounds good, and after all, we can’t miss what we don’t know about, right?
Audio quality wise, this is a great pressing. There is a touch of surface noise in spots, but nothing beyond what most people would consider normal. The only complaint I really have to make, beyond believing that this probably should have been a 2 LP release, is that the volume is very low. You’re going to have to crank this to hear it, but at least it’s an easy fix. This audio comes from a television broadcast, so otherwise it’s very high quality. The mix isn’t fantastic (it’s lacking some “punch”), but it’s certainly still enjoyable.
Musically speaking, Moz and the band are at the top of their game for this one. Some stand out points to me are the beautiful vocal harmonies on “Alma Matters” and just the overall instrumentation of the entire show. Morrissey is certainly having a great time, and he obviously wants to be there. There are some short videos of the gig up on YouTube if you want to get an overall sense of the performance, but I think I will also seek out a copy of the full show as well so I can hear the rest of it. If what we have on this release is any indication, the whole thing is probably excellent.
Overall, I would say this is a release mainly intended for diehard Moz fans. If you are looking for Smiths covers, it would be best to go back to the old albums and get your fix there. The same should be said if you are looking for all the hit Morrissey songs and not the deep cuts, but you should be able to tell if this is for you or not simply by looking at the track list. Printing and packaging for this one comes in at solid 9/10 for me, simply because of the little bit of surface noise. Otherwise, this is a great package. Audio wise, I think we’re looking at about a 7.5/10. As I mentioned, the mix isn’t perfect, and the volume is quite low. Certainly not a deal breaker if you ask me, but these things are factors, nonetheless. As always, this release is limited, so start the search now if you want to get a copy!