Played a peaky blinder on the 'Boxers' tour, then topped it six summers ago ~
"In a city this beautiful it would seem just downright rude not to offer sublimity. An affront to our auspicious surroundings, rain or no rain. In a drunken shithole like Glasgow we takes what we gets, but here the stakes are higher:
In three score and ten concerts I've never seen Morrissey open with such an audacious choice of songs. 'Last Night I Dreamt..' and 'Sunday' are meant to be a mid-set peak aren't they, or even pre-encore set closers? But after the (frankly too bloody long) 'Imperfect List', which is as depressingly apt now as when it was written, Moz strides on looking thunderously suave in his tailored sports-luxe zip top and proceeds to lie down on the stage, nestling his head between the two kick drums with the St. Andrews cross on them, as Gustavo tinkles the intro. As a self-loathing Scotsman I could have done without the Scotch flag bit, but I was agape at the gall of beginning a show flat on your back with a bit of pianissimo while the crowd shower their love like Scouse plastic cups.
He soars through 'Last Night' with an immaculate precision that beggars belief. I'd been concerned in Manchester that his singing sounded a little raspy (understandably so) but tonight it was like a warm, and real, embrace that one hoped would never break. I don't know where he dredges this stuff up from, not sure I want to either, but it seems as vital and alive now, on this stage, as it must have when he first put the words to paper last century. As 'The story is old, I know, but it goes on..' glides gracefully through me it occurs that it's another one of those tried and true profundities which litter Morrissey's art like diamond dust ('Does the mind rule the body..', etc) It's a distillation of existential thought that J-PS would, surely, have given his left nut for. To write the line is good enough, but to send it out into the world with a vocal melody of such defiant yearning, poignancy and resigned acceptance is Top Trumps. Giving expression to the philosophical theory whilst simultaneously rendering the emotional cost. He ends the song where he came in - flat on the floor, in a foetal pose. I don't blame him.
'Everyday Is Like Sunday' continues in (with?) the same vein of magisterial melancholy, and the glorious middle eight going into the crowd-crescendo-lights-up-sing-along-a-Sunday. A true National Anthem. But I'm thinking, this is only 2 songs in? This shouldn't be. But, for me, those 2 opening songs had the crowd slurping out of the man's stigmata for the remainder of the set. He won us over in 2 rounds, he had us by 'greased tea', and we went with him the rest of the way. Following into any ficht. That, I think, is the subtle difference between the Manchester and Edinburgh shows. I enjoyed both immensely, but Edinburgh was definitely the more special. It could simply be a question of percentages (bigger crowd, more idiots) but the Edinburgh crowd were more on-side than Manchester.
And Morrissey seemed to sense it, as he launched into 'Alma Matters' with an apparent mood of gleeful and charming defiance in the delivery. He almost seemed to skip around the stage, matching the dodging and weaving within the lyric of this underrated shining pop gem.
'I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris', as always, is greeted with a roar of approval that disarms me. Don't get me wrong, I love the wee guy, but it always surprises me how popular this song is when there are others on 'Refusal' that are far greater. Tonight, for some reason, it goes in a little deeper than normal. Maybe it's being alone in a handsome town, but the gentle poignancy and bittersweet rigour have me slightly moistening. Or maybe it's cos as he chides 'Yes, you've made yourself plain..' he yanks his luxe-zip-top shut all the way to the neck! (Don't worry, he loosened it again in the dark)
'You Have Killed Me' is, as always, a joy. Sounding slightly less menacing than last summer (although that may have been due to sound 'issues' - the sound generally tonight was pretty poor: too loud, or undefined and squelchy. Not ruinously so though. Ironically, Manchester seemed to me to have clearer sound with about triple the height of tonight's speaker rack.) The song is still a winning amalgam of poperatic dramatics and puckish punkish exuberance.
Next - the true alchemy of pop: 'Shoplifters' crashes into life and I am transported, in a palpitating heartbeat, back to Glasgow Barrowland, Feb 1995, and the first time Morrissey played it, or any other Smiths song, as a solo artist. As a moment in life it beat birth, marriage and death, greeted with a roar of approval I've yet to hear the equal of, but, frankly, the man tonight is almost unrecognisable from that wintery night back West. Tonight he delivers it with such antagonistic abandonment that it is sacrely believable that there are youths in here who were just a twinkle in their father's 'Girlfriend In A Coma' 12-inch in '95. Moz was in a pretty bad way, in many ways, in '95. Some of us were thinking - how many more years could he muster? 17 years later, here some of us are thinking - why bother stopping? Particularly affecting is the 'heartless hand on my shoulder' crescendo; this section is played and sung with such an on-rush of unified and flowing perfection that it really does send shivers up my neck. Who knows what the words actually mean (I'm aware of all the theorys), essentially they may very well be poetical gibberish, but here he delivers them with such swift and silken conviction, the 'BORED before I even BEGAN' climax is rendered with such punchy veracity that I am brought to the point of tears. Happiness was never so sad, etc, and vice versa, etc...
'Fatty' is greeted as raucously as ANY Smiths song you'd care to name. I rarely ever look behind me at concerts (for fear of seeing some weeble shaped moron playing with his BetFred app or some other example of moron-ism) but as 'Fatty' leaps into life I do risk a glance and I see a classic moment - a forty-something couple front row centre of the Grand Circle leap to their feet and begin simultaneously Moz-dancing and singing the song directly to each other, faces inches apart. The couple are....pleasingly rotund. A Kodak moment (widescreen). Although slightly undercut by me looking back as Moz sings '..And I will stay' to see the fella bolting up the stairs towards the doors. Chocolates?
'Speedway' is the equal of last summer, although slightly less stark and stripped back as it was then, slightly more recognisable to the original version. It could still be said to be a sublime mix of Jacques Brel and Johnny Ramone, although last summer Jacques was on top; now Johnny's back in charge. Teasing, enticing, exploratory, celebratory and accusatory - at times almost as if Morrissey himself doesn't quite know where he's going to go with it. Tonight it seems to excite and amuse him.
The black heart of the set pulses on with 'Maladjusted'. This is manifestly the song as it was always destined to be - a dizzying spiral of stalking, seething, questing, loving menace. The dark epic intimacy of the song is fully realised. My favourite Morrissey line ever ('When the gulf between / All the things I need / And the things I receive / Is an ancient ocean wide / wild / lost /uncrossed ') is raised to it's rightful place; as he spits out each word the drums and lights underline their power. He pauses to look askance at the 'safe and stable' warm light above before spinning back into the blood red stage lighting, circling the stage, round and round until that eponymous finalé. As he repeats 'maladjusted...never to be trusted' I watch his face and truth is smeared over every inch. Gustavo seals the deal with the truest falsetto there ever was...
Saturday night's encore comes next and is greeted with similar screams. This delivers up one of my favourite moments from the night when, during the chorus, Morrissey folds to his knees on his vocal monitor and looks to the heavens beyond the gilded innards of the Usher Hall to implore 'Am I Still Ill?' Answer came there none.
'One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell' is a stay-er. It seems able to triumph in any location, something to do with that bass line and those propulsive drums. And the fact that Morrissey sings his words with absolute conviction.
'Ouija Board' offers a comprehensive masterclass in Morrissey stagecraft. The fact that, in the breadth of one darkened pause, he can veer from the muscular linearity of 'Goodbye' to this subtle and nuanced performance is all the testament one would require to his genius. He sings this one almost conversationally, as if to the ouija board, pleading and debating to deliver his lover. At one point he brings his right hand up to his head so that his fingers brace his jawline, and it rests there for a beat, as one might do in converstion with a person, before he pulls the hand away and looks at it with confusion and disgust and tries to throw it off. Like a Strangeways Stranglelove. The words he sings 'just can't find my place in this world', 'so horribly lonely', etc, are writ small and subtle on his very body. The performance is full of these twisted little joys. Just before each Jesse guitar break, in ghostly white light, he creases to his knees and lets out a haunted yawp to his love, from this sphere to the next. At one point he's circling backwards, almost trancelike. It's a breathtaking performance of such a 'funny little single'.
'I Know It's Over' suffers ever so slightly from comparison with the Manchester rendition, in that on Saturday night it was delivered with such volume and size into such a vast space that it became Lancashire Opera. Fittingly. Here, it's merely soul-wrenching.
The sweet and tender subtlety of 'Let Me Kiss You' suffers a little from the poor sound of the venue, and you cannot get the full warmth of Gustavo's keyed string line. Having changed his shirt at the end of 'I Know It's Over' he now rips off this fresh one and tosses it horde-wards. What if you liked them manky? Not your night then.
I'm slightly delighted that he returns in my favourite die-cut stripey luxe-tracky-top that apparently some people abhor. He looks like he could be a member of the 1920s French Tour De France ladies team. In a good way. I'm slightly disappointed however that 'People Are The Same Everywhere' is the only unreleased song given to Edinburgh tonight. I'd had 'Action' gliding around in my head all day today and 'Scandinavia' is still an instant classic to these ears, but 'People..' is still given with love and vibrancy, so should I really complain?
'To Give' is the perfect song for this auditorium, and sounds far better than in the shed in Manchester. It is also one of those songs that could easily go horribly wrong, but tonight Bassey herself could not have formed it more powerfully. It's obvioulsy a bit of a choker in any situation, but the gentle dedication to Kevin Roberts (who the audience spontaneoulsy applauded when his mate told his story) meant that some of us were puddle-esque by the close.
No point drying off, as 'Please Please Please..' follows, to a rapturous welcome. The sound that greets it is a kind of loving and gentle...roar. I know it's hard to imagine a gentle roar, but that's really what it sounded like. I tried to think of another scenario that might produce such a unique sound. The best I could come up with was if a team of 12 Nelson Mandelas were playing 12 Nelson Mandelas in the World Cup. And Nelson Mandela scored the winner. That's the sound the crowd might make.
Another heightened memory occurs during 'PPP..' when I notice the crowd singing along. As they come to the line 'So, for once in my life...' there is the sublime sound of an elongated, feminine 'ssssss' at the start of 'So'. They are waiting to catch up with Morrissey, who is singing at a slightly slower pace and with slightly different phrasing. Only slightly. But they wait. And try to follow. They are singing their version, the version that they've known ever since they first heard it, the version in their head all these years, or maybe just months, that perhaps they've grown up with, or perhaps are just growing into. But the version that means the most to them, whenever they heard it, in Thatcher's reign or in Cameron's. Their version is dichotomised with Morrissey singing it 'His Way' - the particular way that he happens to be phrasing it here, tonight. The difference is so slight as to be almost negligible, but, for me, that feminine 'sss' crystallises a perfect pop moment of love between audience and artist, sung to and sung by, old and new, memory and present. Of course, in that gap, that moment, nobody in the room happened to hear another noise - that of my tired old heart breaking. The eternal reciprocity of tears, as the poet said. (Now, if only Owen could have carried a tune.)
But then ~ towards the end of the song the crowd is struck silent as Morrissey simply intones 'PLEASE' four or five times, eyes closed. Taking their song and, gently, claiming it back as his song. His words. His life. Boiling it down to the very essence of the song. Sung with such yearning you just wouldn't believe it. Ends. Cue that gentle f***ing roar again. Twice as loud.
And, by the by, Jesse played the guitar lines on 'PPP..' to absolute perfection.
'I Will See You...' blasts away our tears, and features some particularly ferocious drumming from the new guy. Which comes into great effect again with 'Meat Is Murder' ("Don't think you're getting away that easily...") - a genuinely visceral offering which climaxes with Morrissey stood on the drum riser, back to crowd, hands clasping the nape of his neck as he gazes up at the horror-strewn screen whilst his band unleash a veritable abattoir of noise all around him.
By a process of elimination I'd already guessed what the encore would be (I would have liked it to be 'Scandinavia' but I can see the arguments against...) And so 'How Soon is Now' erupts into life and a bloody red bedlam ensues. A loving bedlam, but bedlam all the same. A few hardy souls make it on stage to be greeted with loving arms. Moz is going around collecting gifts like a kid at Christmas. And teasing and tickling straining outstretched fingertips. And standing at the drums with his perspiring-heart-back firmly turned away from the crowd, for large parts of the song, holding his fingers just like in the photograph of young Steve Morrissey of Stretford (that we can now wear on our chest), while the crowd behind writhe and bay and flail to get one inch nearer. And I'm thinking ~ 'He LOVES this'. What the hell is he gonna do when it's gone?
Then I'm thinking 'What the hell am I gonna do when it's gone?'
Me and my f***ing Memories.
.
