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Photos reveal The Smiths' 'dramatic' Manchester farewell

Haider SaleemNorth West
Alison Bell A black-and-white photograph of Morrissey singing into a wired microphone on stage. He is wearing a loose shirt with vertical stripes.Alison Bell
The show proved to The Smiths' farewell to Manchester as they split up months later

Manchester's Free Trade Hall has a special place in music history, as the venue - now a hotel - hosted some landmark moments.

It was where an electric guitar-wielding Bob Dylan famously faced an accusation of "Judas!" from a disgruntled folk fan, where a Sex Pistols show that inspired some of the city's most famous bands and the legendary Factory Records and where rock giants Kiss made their UK debut.

And it was where The Smiths, one of Manchester's most iconic bands, played what would prove to be their final farewell to the city on 30 October 1986.

Forty years on, rarely-seen photos of the show, taken by then-student Alison Bell show what she said was a "dramatic" and "amazing" night.

Bell, who had been drawn to Manchester by its music scene as a student and went on to have a successful career in music promotion, said she had been desperate to see the band and the Free Trade Hall show was "the first opportunity I had to see them".

Formed by singer Morrissey and guitarist Johnny Marr in 1982, the band were at the peak of their powers at the show, riding high on the success of their third long-player, The Queen Is Dead, which would go on to become widely-regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time.

Bell was at the show as a writer for Manchester Polytechnic's student newspaper, Pulp.

"I got given a ticket for it if I would review it and take photographs," she said.

Bell said the show was "amazing" and "dramatic"

Her role granted her more freedom than the rest of the crowd, as she was able to roam a photographers' area in front of the stage.

"We could just walk from side to side and take pictures," she said.

"Using film... there was no going back, you just took a picture and hoped for the best."

She said the show was "amazing".

"Obviously, I'd wanted to see them for a long time, so I was just so excited to be there."

Alison Bell A grainy black-and-white photograph of Morrissey performing on stage at Manchester's Free Trade Hall in 1986. He is pictured from the side, wearing dark sunglasses and a dark jacket, with his hair swept upwards. His mouth is open as he sings into a handheld microphoneAlison Bell
Bell said she remembered Morrissey waving placards during the show

She said the gig was "dramatic", with the band entering to Prokofiev's Dance of the Knights.

"They came on stage [and] sang Ask [as] the first song and it was just fantastic."

The set list reads like a greatest hits, with songs from The Queen Is Dead, such as How Soon Is Now? and There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, interspersed with future classics That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore, Panic and Still Ill.

Bell said she also remembered Morrissey waving placards bearing the words The Queen Is Dead and Two Light Ales, Please.

The latter phrase would become part of Smiths folklore and inspired the name of a fanzine about the band.

Alison Bell A close-up black-and-white photograph of Johnny Marr on stage at the Free Trade Hall. A guitar strap decorated with a row of metal eyelets runs diagonally across his chest.Alison Bell
The show was one of the final performances by the band, as Johnny Marr left months later

Bell said she took more than 30 photos on the night, but only one was used by the student newspaper.

That left her with an archive of images of a gig which unexpectedly gained extra significance after it happened.

The band would only play live once more, at a charity benefit in London, before the increasingly-strained relationship between Morrissey and Marr boiled over and the guitarist left the band in mid-1987.

"People didn't know they were going to split up, of course," she said

Alison Bell Two photographs of Alison Bell - one is sepia-toned and shows her as a young woman, wearing earrings and shoulder-length hair, and the other is a colour portrait of Alison Bell standing in front of a colourful display of flowers and greenery. She has shoulder-length, dark, curly hair and is looking directly at the camera with a slight smile.Alison Bell
Bell was a student at Manchester Polytechnic when she photographed The Smiths

She said she put the photos away for safe-keeping, but always had plans to share them when the time was right.

"I'd been meaning to do something with them for a long time and just never got around to it," she said.

She said it was her involvement in fundraising events at Salford Lads Club that caused her to revisit the collection.

The club has been an essential destination for fans after the band used it as the backdrop for a famous photo which featured on the inner sleeve of The Queen Is Dead.

Alison Bell black-and-white photograph of Morrissey singing on stage at Manchester's Free Trade Hall in October 1986. He is wearing large dark sunglasses. He holds a microphone close to his mouthAlison Bell
Both Morrissey and Marr went on to have hugely successful solo careers

Bell has since worked with designer Martin Holland to produce merchandise, including a T-shirt featuring one of her close-up photographs of Morrissey, with a reproduction of her original concert ticket on the back.

"I had it tucked away... for 40 years," she said.

"I just thought, 'yeah, it is a good photograph and I should let people see it'."

She said she was also considering producing posters and making more of the collection available, but had yet to decide on further plans.

And tantalisingly, she said there may even be more unseen photos, as she believes she has negatives that she did not develop at the time, but has not yet found them.

Fans will hope they turn up and offer a further glimpse into the final moments of an iconic band.

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