Taper : Paul

Sound Quality : Audience

Length : 45.38

There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
Big Mouth Strikes Again
Panic
Vicar In A Tutu
Frankly Mr. Shankly
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
Purple Haze
Ask
I Want The One I Can't Have
Never Had No-One Ever
Cemetry Gates
The Boy With The Thorn In His Side
Is It Really So Strange
Shakespeare's Sister
What She Said

It was 10 years since punk hit Manchester, and someone had decided to put on a commemorative concert called "The Festival Of The 10th Summer" and the Smiths were going to play. We immediately got tickets. They also added 3 more dates, presumably as a warm up to the Festival ... and to the upcoming US tour. The first date was in Glasgow and we were driving up .. which is a good 9 hours. We decided it would be easier to do it at night, so we set off from London about 10pm. I did all the driving while everyone else tried to catch some sleep ... I think I had a little 'help' staying awake. We drove into Glasgow between 6 and 7 in the morning ... had no problem finding a parking space, and wandered round the city streets waiting for the Tourist Office to open so we could book our B&B for the night. Surprisingly, we were their first customers of the day, and we were soon driving off to find the hotel ... and immediately decided to have a quick snooze. The others decided to go down to the venue in the early afternon ... but I was still shattered from the drive, so decided to sleep a bit more.

Paul had just bought a new mic ... a tiny one that was a mic and plug in one, and just slotted into the top of the tape deck. He thought it would make it easier to tape un-noticed. He took it down to the venue, and they managed to get into the venue. The band were already soundchecking and Paul switched on his recorder. The band (minus Morrissey) seemed to be running through their set. He told me he had the recorder poking out the top of his jacket, and just left it running until the tape ran out ... which is why there's only 45 minutes of it and the last track cuts out half way through. I remember him coming back afterwards quite excited and playing me the version of Purple Haze that they had played.

Anyway ... This is NOT from the master tape. This is from a copy that Paul made for me. But I guess it's probably still better than most of the versions out there. I don't think he used his professional Walkman for this. He had a smaller Panasonic (I think) recorder with mic socket at the top, where the mic plugged in. I can't remember the make of that. I remember it having quite a tinny sound ... but listening to the tape it actually sounds quite good.