Last night, during his gig at Ironworks in Inverness, Morrissey commented that it’d been 26 years (not quite) since he’d been in town and he wondered whether the Germans had bombed a local landmark.
That landmark was the Eden Court Theatre, the site of The Smiths only ever gig in the city, which took place on 1 October 1985; a gig at which I was present. In fact I was at all seven dates on that Scottish tour. For a band to play out more than two or three gigs in Scotland on any tour was unprecedented, let alone a full stand-alone tour and The Smiths visited such far-flung holiday resorts as Irvine, Dundee, Aberdeen and Lerwick as well as Central Belt sparring partners Glasgow and Edinburgh. The last date of the tour was in Inverness. Morrissey replicates this tour on his current sojourn in Caledonia with stop offs in Perth, Inverness, Dunoon, Dunfermline (see you all there) and Hawick.
In September/October 1985 I took ten days off work and embarked on the adventure of a lifetime visiting every but and ben of The Smiths’ Scottish tour. In the heady days before Ticketbastard and their policy of fees for fees’ sake you could either queue up outside the local record shop (Ripping Records for the Edinburgh/Glasgow gigs) or simply send a cheque for the face value, along with a stamped-addressed envelope. As the pictures attached show, each ticket was £5 except for an exorbitant £6 in the case of the Clickimin Centre. It’s no wonder they only ever get Showaddywaddy and Barbara Dickson up there.
I recall one ticket coming from a record shop in Hamilton. All the tickets came back within a few days of each other. There were no gold tickets or pre-sales in those days just good old-fashioned first-come, first-served. Where’s the fun in spending several frustrating hours on a jammed phoneline trying to get through to a venue/booking agent when you could join several hundred like-minded souls camping out on the pavement outside a record shop or venue to ensure you get your grubby mitts on a pair of tickets to see The Smiths?
Having got tickets for all seven gigs – I felt like Charlie Bucket – I proceeded to tour the country by Citylink (or the local equivalent – Stagecoach hadn’t taken over the world then) through highland and lowland. Another £50+ was forked out for a seat on the 14-hour ferry trip from Aberdeen to Lerwick. A cabin was out of the question. I mean, who could sleep?
The order of the tour was Irvine (22 Sept), Edinburgh (24), Glasgow (25), Dundee (26), Aberdeen (28), Lerwick (30) and, finally, Inverness. Each date of the tour seemed to have its own drama. In Irvine, I realised that I hadn’t actually taken down the address of the B&B I was staying at! I’d got there, dumped my stuff and fled to the venue, such was my excitement. It was only on the comedown from the high of the first gig of the tour that I realised that I didn’t know where I was staying! I eventually found it when I told the taxi driver that I thought it was on or near a cobbled street. Thankfully, he knew immediately where it was. A good job the gig wasn’t in Edinburgh or I’d still be looking for my stuff now. I was so keen to get to the venue, the Magnum Leisure Centre, that I hadn’t bothered with a minor triviality like the address or phone number. A lesson learned.
Although the seven-date tour took ten days I do recall going back to work for a day. The next gig, in Edinburgh, was accessible from home and wasn’t really as adventure-filled as the others. At the other gigs I’d meet new people from all over the world whereas on this ‘hometown’ jaunt I was accompanied by friends. I loved them dearly but wanted to get back to my adventures ‘on the road’. It was the only gig at which I missed the whole of Easterhouse’s set of powerful leftist pop. I regretted that because as glorious as The Smiths were this was a double-header tour for me; two great bands for the price of one. The Smiths always had a knack for great support acts, well, almost always, and Easterhouse are still a favourite. For the rest of the tour I made sure I watched all of their set, although I missed a bit of it in Aberdeen.
As much as I enjoy the Barrowland Ballroom in Glasgow I don’t remember much about this particular visit there. I mean, in terms of the music, it’s well-documented elsewhere on the information super dual carriageway, but on a personal level the only thing that stood out was the hovel of a B&B that I’d booked in to. If I called it a shithole it would be unfair on shitholes. I knew it was bad when I saw the cockroaches leaving in disgust. Thankfully for me and the sake of the owners my memory of its name and location has been erased. I wish I could say the same for the smell.
Dundee was up next and that’s where I met a number of memorable people, not least the great man himself. One of my memories of that particular day was that I had a bad hair day, having run of “product”, which was probably VO5 mousse or that pink own brand hairspray Boots sold, which was perfumed or unperfumed – I wasn’t fussy – and came in industrial-sized cans. The photo above is evidence of my Capillus Horribilis. As I said, I met loads of people on the tour and I think, I say think, because it was a while ago you know, that I met Anne Hooper, Jane Hardwell and Angela Spray, a Bristolian triumvirate, as well as Amanda Hall (or was it Hill?) from the Midlands and an American called Blair Hill (or was it Hall?). There were also a couple of girls we – I now had a posse – rather cruelly dubbed “The Vicar’s Daughters”. I have a photo of them somewhere but I’ll spare everyone’s blushes. Apologies to anyone else I may have forgotten.
Now I don’t want to come across as some sort of “player” because I most certainly was not but there was another drama with a young lady at the Caird Hall. I was sat next to her and she dropped her camera and we ended up fixing it with a plaster but she was upset because it was her mother’s camera and her mother “would kill her”. I cobbled together a plausible story as to why it had become damaged and she cheered up. She then told me that she could never go out with me (not that I had asked you understand) because I was such a good liar! The last of the international playboys, I most certainly was not.
Since the late 1970s I’d supported Aston Villa from afar and had only recently taken to following Hibernian, a team who perennially take underachievement to new highs (or should that be lows?) A section of the Hibees’ support, known as the Casuals (almost every club had them), were amongst the most feared in Scotland, if not the UK. Aberdeen also had a “crew” to be feared, the imaginatively entitled Aberdeen Soccer Casuals. On the next date of the tour I found myself crawling through the back streets of Aberdeen trying to avoid them after hooking up with a Dundee-supporting Smiths fan. I personally hadn’t done anything to offend them. In fact it would be a whole month before I would attend my first proper match, the 1985-1986 Scottish League Cup final which saw Aberdeen thump Hibs 3-0. The Dundee fan, whose name escapes me, was now in ‘enemy territory’ and we took the long route to Aberdeen’s Capitol Theatre for fear of getting a kickin’. It seems he was known to them and if spotted he’d had got hit with more than a sponge and a rusty spanner. By association and virtue of being in the immediate vicinity I probably would have suffered a similar fate. I was a lover not a fighter; I could barely open the instruction leaflet to the Bullworker we had at home. Okay, I wasn’t exactly a lover then either, being an unworldy-wise 18-year-old from ‘the sticks’. This was why I missed some of Easterhouse’s set. Indeed, when we got in to the venue, frontman Ivor Perry was going walkabout in the aisles with the microphone.
The seat I’d purchased on the ferry from Aberdeen to Lerwick had been a waste of money as I spent almost all of the trip in the bar with fellow fans and support band Easterhouse, who hijacked the cabaret act to celebrate drummer Gary’s birthday (see below). The ferry left Aberdeen at 6pm and was due in to Lerwick at 8 am. Coincidentally the bar opened at 6pm and Easterhouse’s first great gesture was to buy a case of cider and plonk it on one of the tables for The Smiths’ (and now Easterhouse) fans to enjoy. God bless them. I briefly came to at one point in the early hours to witness the cleaners hoovered around the scattered bodies of Smiths fans in the lounge before resuming my cider-soaked slumber! I only spent ten minutes in that pre-paid seat and five of them were spent watching TV-AM (trust me, we had no choice), whose chosen pop video that morning was none other than The Smiths’ new single, “The Boy With The Thorn In His Side”. Moirae would have doffed her cap at such fatalistic fortune.
The main highlight of the Lerwick gig, apart from seeing a sheep trying to get in through the revolving door of the Clickimin Centre, was meeting Morrissey again. I found out which hotel he was at (okay, there was only one) and asked if I could see him, fully expecting to be rebuffed. Instead I was told to come back in twenty minutes, which I duly did. He was sat in reception. Most of what I said was a blur but I did ask him to autograph three postcards that I was sending to friends and colleagues. One went to my friend Yanthe, one to a Madonna-mad girl I knew called Louise (McEwing?) and the last to my work colleagues, who I didn’t really like. The last card probably didn’t last a week and I don’t know where Louise is, let alone the card, but Yanthe, who I’m back in touch with thanks to Facecloth, assures me her postcard is still in existence. When she digs it out from behind the dusty SodaStream in the loft I’ll post a picture of both sides of it.
By the time I reached Inverness I had run out of money and after checking in to my pre-booked B&B I realised my monetary misfortune and did what any right-minded human would do. I asked for forgiveness. No, I didn’t; I scarpered.
Originally I had a seat for the stalls at the Inverness gig but swapped it for a seat in the Circle so I could be beside a girl. A number of Smiths fans were doing the whole tour and I’d met some earlier in the day at the back of the venue as we waited for the band to arrive. I met her there. She had run away from home, in the North East of England, to be at the gig. Sadly our blossoming romance (in my mind) ended where it began, in the Eden Court Theatre. Once an awkward bumbling romantic…
The Smiths’ Inverness gig was remarkable in that it was also the only time they ever played the song “Asleep” live. A beautifully, haunting ballad, it was also an unashamed paean to suicide. The band arrived to find a piano at the side of the stage that couldn’t be shifted so they took the opportunity to play one of the B-sides from the new single, with Johnny tickling the ivories.
My “bed” for the night was made at the train station although not before we followed the band’s tour bus to their hotel. We sat in the bar near some of the band and crew but daren’t speak to them. We were dumbstruck with awe (or is that awestruck with dumb?). We hadn’t thought this part of the plan through. I got a Citylink bus home the next morning after the greatest ten days of my young life.
I was fortunate enough to see The Smiths a total of twelve times, including their last ever gig at Brixton Academy in that there London on 12 December 1986, and not once did they fail to deliver. The same can’t always be said for Morrissey as a somewhat curmudgeonly solo act but he can knock out more good tunes than Jessie J has ever heard and he can still cut it with the best of them in the live arena, albeit at a premium rate. Monday night in Dunfermline (Dunfermline! Nobody plays in Dunfermline!!) will be the fifth time I’ve seen him. I saw him twice in 1995 on the “Boxers” tour and twice promoting “You Are The Quarry” in 2004 – the gigs spreadsheet never lies – and I must say, I’m really looking forward to seeing him. I may even become a fanboy once more and mooch around the venue in the afternoon in the pathetic hope I can gain a moment of his time. Whether he’ll sign my copy of “Mozipedia”, well, that’s a different story.
Morrissey plays Dunfermline on Monday 20 June and Hawick City Hall on Tuesday 21 June. Thanks to Simon Goddard and Jayne Chisholm for inspiration.
Love it. Thanks for posting this, it brightened up a somewhat dull morning.
A classic of warm nostalgia, it really brought back what being your age in the eighties was like. Thanks a lot.
a really good tale of a true fan “good times”
Didn’t even think about how he was replicating the tour from 26 years ago. Amazing stuff.
Superb, my friend! A great write-up…even if it’s 25+ years late.
We were the first, we were the first. Not the bloody americans who made Moz soft!
Great piece, thanks for sharing. Went down well with a cup of Earl Grey and a piece of toast. The detail of your Capillus Horribilis is very funny. And I share your pain. Some years ago I was lucky enough to meet David Bowie — and horrified to discover that during my clumsy banter with the Thin White Duke, I had dog shit on my shoes. I wonder if he thought it was I who stank – and if that explains why he was so quick to leave and move on …
Amazing… i loved your account… I am a lo9ng time fan from brazil. Have been into The Smiths since 1986…. I can only wonder what it would have been like to do the same as you did… and I loved seeing the ticket stubs… great great great!!!!
Great account. Much appreciated.
Dunfermline was brilliant last night as well. Some things NEVER change.
The Smiths at Eden Court in 1985 was my first ever concert. They did play there the summer before, June 84, not long after Heaven Knows came out. My brother saw that one (which means he got to see them play Jeane live, the bastard) but at 12 I was still tied to the apron strings and playing with sticklebricks. Thankfully, I managed to make the second time they played on 1 October 85 as I was nearly 14 (13 years, 9 months and 10 days to be specific). It was a Tuesday (I think?) and the weekend before the BBC had run two days of coverage commemorating the 30th anniversary of James Dean’s death. I spent the weekend watching Eden, Rebel and Giant for the first time and then two days later I saw The Smiths. Between Cal Trask and Nowhere Fast my adolescence was nailed in those 100 or so hours.
Vivid memories of Eden Court. Morrissey curling up in a ball during Asleep. The crowd chanting “Joh-nny Marr Joh-nny Marr” to the tune of Here We Go until Morrissey barked at them to “Shut up!”. The first time I heard Bigmouth and Frankly. The manic stage invasion during Miserable Lie and watching a bouncer smack a kid full in the face and blood spurting everywhere. These two girls at Marr-side of the stage mooning at Johnny and me trying to muscle in behind them. Fat sweaty slamdancing and pandemonium everytime Morrissey’s shirt got tugged by the front rows. Rourke, still as a rock, smirking the whole time. The volume of the Prokofiev intro and being unable to breathe with excitement when they first came on stage, fearing I might vomit. Easterhouse were good too. Did they start with Whistling In The Dark? In my head they did and these two beehived (?) girls were dancing alone in front of the stage.
So I returned to Inverness to watch Morrissey last week, purely out of sentiment: to see him in the town where I first clapped eyes on his blistering chin. He was in tremendous voice but I made some comments on Twitter about the audience being a bit placid. A lot of that is my own twisted perspective as an old lag having watched him solo in concert since the early 90s. Back then, when he never played Smiths songs, had he suddenly slipped into I Know It’s Over half the crowd would have been undoing their shoelaces in the first verse so they could hang themselves from the rafters with joy come the chorus. Today, it seems it’s taken for granted with a shower of polite applause. But then the likes of me and Misery Guts are grumpy old grampas on the subject. “Not like in our day.” It’s true, though. We were lucky enough to have had our hearts, minds, hips and limbs bent, buckled and banjaxed by the The Smiths at full blast and it’s not a typhoon we will ever forget.
Many thanks to Paul for sharing his memories (a “wee book” pitch if ever I read one) which I was only too happy to jog.
Simon Goddard
That there London
June 2011
Yes you are correct, they played Eden Court twice. One in 1984 and again in 1985. I went to both of these plus a Barrowlands gig in between.
Happy days.
Thank you
I never got to see The Smiths in concert as I moved from Kilbarchan, Scotland, to South Africa with my family in June of 1984, less than a year after first discovering the band on Top of the Pops. I’ve been to many Moz gigs since and as much as they are manna from heaven, I’m very aware that a Moz concert is not a Smiths gig.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading your account of your very own Smiths tour, with Easterhouse too; what a combination. Many thanks. You’ve made a happy man very old.
Hi Paul
Great to read what you have prevously chatted through. My jelousy is as intense now as it was then.
Enjoyed your written account and I hope you enjoyed Morrissey playing on your “home” patch on Monday? He was certainly as chipper as I have seen him in 20 + shows and the Dunfermline public merit a hearty round of applause for the welcome they gave (Kirkcaldy lad and Raith Rovers fanatic in Dunfermline compliment shocker…)
Was listening to Marko solo modcast en route to work and thinking it would be right up your street. When you podcasting your show so my work journey can become less tedious.
Davie Hancock
Hi Davie,
Great to hear from you and thanks for the kind words.
Morrissey was on form on Monday; the same can’t be said for the airport-style security. A pointlessy time-consuming exercise. What were they looking for? A pound of Puddledub’s finest pork bangers? The amount of recordings available on YaChoob show they were wasting their time.
I wasn’t aware of the Marko Solo modcast previously but have now found it and am giving number 21 a whirl as i type. Always looking for new tunes to, erm, “appropriate”!
You can record my Leith FM show (Thursday 8.30-10) through Real Player and play it at your leisure, as others have done. You can also join in on the “Where The Action Is (Radio Show)” Facebook page during the show.
Cheers for now
The Cat
=^..^=
I have a ticket from Eden court, 17th June 1984, this was the first Smiths visit to Inverness, 1985 being the second tour. At the first gig, Morrissey threw his shirt into the crowd, where it was promptly torn apart by the crowd, I managed to get a large bit. Fastforward 5 years and i meet a girl who, like myself was at the 84 gig, she had a piece of the same shirt…….and the pieces fitted together!! SPOOKY!!! She is now my wife! The Smiths and Morrissey have always played a pivital part in my life. Got to see Morrisey, at The Ironworks, on the 17th June 20011, 27 years after that momentus Smiths gig.
Steve G
Thanks for posting this, what an awesome read.
Superb stuff. I unfortunately was too young to see The Smiths, namely any of the QTID tour, being 13 and living in deepest darkest Devon in 1986. I think I have tried to make up for it since seeing Moz many many times, including a 3 night stint at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York, where I now reside.
I loved this article on many levels, but can only imagine what this would have been like pre-internet. Mailing a cheque and self addressed envelope seems so quaint now.
This is what the internet and blogging is all about – marvelous reads like this one. Thank you.
[…] Scholarship. In 2012, I had also been been shortlisted with an edited version of my Smiths piece, Back To The Old House – The Smiths’ Scottish Tour 1985. Re-titled as It’s Time The Tale Were Told and trimmed to 1000 words, as per the entry […]
Just listening to “Clickerman” right now – a bootleg CD of the Lerwick show in 1985 – so I thought I would trawl t’internet to see what was out there about this very gig and tour. Thanks very much for your article. It’s excellent and very nostalgic.