Previously unseen photographs of The Smiths during their final Manchester concert have been unveiled to mark the 40th anniversary of the show. The images were taken by Alison Bell, who attended the gig at the Free Trade Hall on October 30, 1986, with a photographer's pass and an assignment to review the performance for Manchester Polytechnic's student newspaper, Poly.
A Historic Night in Manchester
The concert formed part of The Queen Is Dead tour and opened not with a familiar Smiths track but with Sergei Prokofiev's Dance of the Knights. Morrissey, Johnny Marr, Andy Rourke, Mike Joyce and Craig Gannon then took to the stage to perform Ask, which had been released as a single ten days earlier.
Bell, who now works in PR, told the Manchester Evening News that she had long wanted to see the band. "I grew up in Cornwall and there weren't many bands that played there so when I came up to the big city, I just wanted to see as many live shows as I could. I was mad on The Smiths and I had been trying to see them perform for a long time, but it had never worked out."
Memories of the Show
Bell recalled that the band performed as a five-piece with Craig Gannon, and that Morrissey brought two large banners on stage. "One said The Queen Is Dead and the other said Two Light Ales, Please. It was fantastic." The set also included then-unreleased songs Is It Really So Strange and London, while Morrissey introduced Meat Is Murder as the band's "Christmas message to the world".
At the time, Bell was a fashion and textiles student and developed the photos in the college's dark room. Aside from the Poly review and a couple of other projects, the images have remained largely unseen until now.
A Special Edition T-Shirt
To coincide with the anniversary, one of Bell's photos of Morrissey has been used on a special edition t-shirt created in collaboration with Mitchell Harrison, founder of Mishmash Records. The design shows the frontman wearing sunglasses on stage, and the shirt, along with a tote bag, features a mock ticket stub showing tickets cost £6.50, or £4.50 for those on unemployment benefits.
Bell said she had been meaning to do something with the photo for some time. "I wasn't sure anyone would be interested or really care, but then my friends kept insisting I did something with it." She met Harrison at a fundraising event at Salford Lads Club, and they decided to time the release with the 40th anniversary. "It's so obviously Morrissey - it could not be anyone else. I hope it's something the fans can appreciate and it reminds them of what was a really special part of the band's history." The t-shirts are available on the Mishmash Records website.
