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Personal Summary:

I was disappointed that Moz didn't play "Why Don't You Find Out For Yourself" or "London". The tix were too expensive (~15 pounds) for a one hour show. I saw Moz for the 3rd time and this was (rather!) good, because half of the songs weren't my favourites. But that's my problem for sure. But on the other hand the band played very powerfully.

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Summary by Alexander Wendt

The show took place in a packed "Grosse Freiheit", a club with a capacity of around 2000, which is located directly in the heart of Hamburg's famous red-light district "Reeperbahn". For the Beatles fans: The club used to be called "Star Club" in the 60's, right next door is the "Kaiserkeller", both made famous when the Beatles played there for a few months in 1960/61 (watch the movie "Backbeat" if you want to know more about that).

Opening band was Elcka (although the Smoking Popes were announced on the tickets) who played a short set, but were very well received. And then after a short while the man himself entered the stage dressed in black and started the show with "Do Your Best And Don't Worry".

The crowd was very enthusiastic, but not as violent as in previous years. The average age of the fans was somewhere around 25 I would guess. So not a lot of new fans, mainly old-timers like myself (29 years old, Smiths/Moz fan since 1984).

All-in-all a great concert, a nice mixture of songs from the last 3 albums, a few nice comments towards the crowd "You look sexy", "It's nice to see so many young and smiling faces tonight", "What do you want ? Brown girl in the ring?" (to a group of fans singing something along to the tune of the old Boney M. song).

Moz touched a lot of hands, took letters and stuffed them into his pants, helped 3 people onto the stage (one kneeled down in front of him), security seemed to be not too harsh.

I heard a few disappointed voices afterwards, due to the shortness of the set, I think that if he wants to win over more than just the hardcore fans, he should probably rethink his 60 minutes + 1 encore policy.

Still a great evening, so I hope I don't have to wait another 5 years again.

Summary by Joachim Sell

Well, after seeing three concerts in 1991 and two in 1992 (including the London Alexandra Palace show), I missed him in February 1995 because Bruce Duff of the ACTS-Fanzine was letting me and my friends down!

And today, we have the great luck of getting another chance to see him live in Hamburg after waiting five long years. And what kind of luck it was! Yesterday my wife gave birth to our first baby (a girl) and for a few days it wasn't sure if it would arrive before the Moz show... But it's my daughter and she learns quickly, so she didn't cancel the event for me =:-)

After reading all the reviews of the US dates and downloading something useful (many nice pictures) - or useless - I was prepared for the show in Hamburg at the club "Große Freiheit" near the Reeperbahn.

Support was Elcka, not the Smoking Popes as announced! But I must admit that I only liked their two singles "Supercharged" and "Nothing To Lose", the rest of the set was terrible, but the audience was kind and tolerant...

Then the typical intro tape of Morrissey's favourite (mostly 60s/70s) songs made the crowd hungry for Morrissey, as several "Morrisseyyyy, morrissseyyyy"´s (to the "here we go" football/soccer hymn) indicated. The venue was sold out, about 1500 people couldn't wait any longer and - finally - the "Operation" drum solo started. And then there he was in person, dressed completely in black, screamed "Hello Hamburgers!" and started into "Do Your Best And Don't Worry". The atmosphere was electric, the audience was about 15 feet from the stage and jumped during the first 3 songs. Sadly the sound wasn't too good, with the guitars too loud and Morrissey's voice seemed disturbed a bit during the first half of the show.

Highlights were "Alma Matters", "Now My Heart Is Full", "Ignore Me" and of course "Shoplifters" (as the only encore, Moz wore a white shirt which he threw into the crowd at the end), where two guys crawled over some people and made it on stage to hug him. Before that, two more guys and one girl hugged him during "Ignore Me". Morrissey smiled and was amused.

As usual, he didn't talk too much, he made only the following comments:

- "It´s nice to look into your smiling faces"
- "Thank you for being so sexy - I meant myself!" (before "Shoplifters")
- "I love you" (after "Shoplifters")

And after some people singing "Eric Cantona, lalalala,..." he said:
- "What does that mean?"

Then the fans started the famous "Morrisseyyyy, morrissseyyyy"´s again, Alain Whyte was helping to get more people singing so it gets louder. Alain gave a happy "thumbs up".

It was just a great pleasure to see the man again. He's my favourite pop star and meant so much to me during the last 11 years. He still hasn't lost the things he's always stood for: the charisma, the voice, the powerful songs. Hopefully he will carry on for some years. But I believe this will be his last tour :-(

And now, three hours after the gig, I am sitting at home in front of my computer. My wife and our baby are still in hospital. What more can I write? The birth was the "other event" during the last two days, that's for sure!