Now here’s something you don’t see every day: A snapshot of Billy Bragg and Morrissey — clad in knee-bearing shorts and some sort of floral or Hawaiian shirt, with his tongue jutting out — at Canada’s Wonderland amusement park in Toronto while on tour with The Smiths in 1985.
Sunday afternoon, Bragg posted the photo on his Facebook page after reading this month’s Mojo cover story on the making of The Queen is Dead some 25 years ago.
Bragg writes:
“I’m quoted in this month’s Mojo as saying that, while on tour with the Smiths in Canada in 1985, me and Morrissey went on one of the rides at Kingswood in Toronto wearing Hawaiian shirts and summer shorts. Doubt has been cast on my memory of this event in some quarters and so I have once again plugged in my trusty neg scanner and here we are in ‘Canada’s Wonderland.’ Looks like I was only half right though, as I appear to be wearing a Fats Domino T-shirt and cheap jeans.”
The photo — which we were alerted to by Morrissey-solo.com — was taken while The Smiths were in Toronto for the band’s first Canadian performance, on June 9, 1985, at the Kingswood Theatre. After posting the photo shown above, Bragg dug up a second shot that he also posted to Facebook, showing him performing his opening set that night.
PREVIOUSLY ON SLICING UP EYEBALLS:
- Vintage Video: The Smiths’ third-ever concert, 28 years ago today at The Hacienda
- Hear The Smiths’ reggae version of ‘Girlfriend In A Coma,’ other rare outtakes
- Video: British PM Cameron, MP McCarthy use The Smiths to debate tuition
- Morrissey joins Johnny Marr in ‘forbidding’ David Cameron from liking The Smiths
- Hey, look, it’s another picture of Morrissey with a cat sitting on top of his head
- Morrissey wears a cat on his head, says ‘the Chinese are a subspecies’
- Morrissey’s ‘Bona Drag’ 20th anniversary reissue to feature 6 unreleased tracks
- Photo: Morrissey and Rick Astley backstage at the BBC’s ‘Top of the Pops’ in 1989
This is awesome! I was at that show. Had, like, 7th row I think. It was boss!