This Charming Man
Morrissey looking like he is perhaps having a stroke.
Last night I finally got to see Morrissey. I’d been waiting long enough for an opportunity and as a bonus he was only playing a couple of miles up the road from me. Sadly before I could revel in Morrissey I had to sit through the 6 piece support act ‘Brother’. I always feel sorry for support acts who tour with someone like Moz, the crowd can’t be arsed watching them and seem to barely tolerate them. Brother, I took one look at and thought ‘Please no! They look like they will sound like I will want to put them out of their misery.’ I wasn’t far off it, while technically competent, they sounded in places like a bad Mansun, and sunk as low as sounding like thuggish twattery of Oasis. They could easily slip in that massive musical landscape of blandness. There was a backing singer who resembled the ghost out of ‘Being Human’ almost hidden, dancing away at the side of the stage, I’m not sure whether she was actually part of the band or had just wandered in off the street. On around seven occasions the audience were asked if they were ok. No, I’m not ok, I have to listen to your music and terribly poor banter! Sadly it was one of the longest 30 minutes of my life.
As for Morrissey, he was good, his band were all dressed identically in black trousers, shiny black shoes and turquoise shirts and they are all stood a good 10 foot behind him, clearly drawing the boundary that ‘I am the talent, you are easily replacable.’ Though the guitarists are allowed to wander forwards during some brutally loud, screeching solos before running back, making you wonder what the point of them wandering to the front of the stage was for.
I recently noticed that Morrissey along with Stewart Lee and William Shatner all seem to merging into the same person. The latter Moz managed to channel during his cracking opener of ‘I Want The One I Can’t Have’, “acting” a couple of lines in a highly amusing but very much Shatner style. Moz’s set was peppered with Smiths songs, such as ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’, ‘I Know It’s Over’, ‘Meat Is Murder’, complete with 70s abbatoir footage and ‘Shoplifters of the World Unite’. The evening sadly felt a bit lacklustre, it was a good gig, it wasn’t caused my own expectations. I think it was perhaps the quality of the sound. When the guitars got loud, Moz wasn’t drowned out, he just became incomprehensible, which is just as bad. Also the quality of the music was noticably lacking in places during some of the songs, and not just the Smiths ones.
Halfway through the set for “legal reasons” Morrissey introduced us to his band, when he got to the drummer an evil part of me wanted to yell ‘MIKE JOYCE!’ just to see if Moz would storm off in a childish huff or not. I did not do this, because I’m not a twat and also I like my nice face and wouldn’t want thrown from the balcony by a rather upset crowd, if he chose to leave the stage.
The gig was rounded off by an encore of ‘This Charming Man’ just sounded wrong, maybe it was the lack of the jangly Marr guitar that removed something from the song for me? Which given he had two guitarists and they played the Marr parts well enough elsewhere.
Morrissey? He was good, but I got far more out of the Lovely Eggs gig I was at the other month. It stirred more inside me than last night’s gig did. Last night should have been so much more than it was, but it wasn’t maybe Moz hit the nail on the head when after ‘People Are The Same Everywhere’ he said “I saw your attention wavering there, but we won’t talk about it.”
SetList:
I Want The One I Can’t Have
First Of The Gang To Die
You Have Killed Me
Shoplifters Of The World Unite
Everyday Is Like Sunday
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
Alma Matters
Speedway
One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell
Action Is My Middle Name
The Kid’s A Looker
People Are The Same Everywhere
Satellite Of Love
I Know It’s Over
I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris
Ouija Board
Meat is Murder
Irish Blood, English Heart
This Charming Man
