From the front row of the sold-out O2, with a mass of 20,000 roaring in crescendo behind me, the cult of personality palpably rose from every lifted head and intermingled with the rising smoke on stage. Through the blackened skeins entered the infamous Morrissey, appearing more like Darth Vader than Dorian Gray. Vintagely decked in a belt of gladioli and a scandalously unbuttoned pink dress shirt, a face of determination and the smuggest shrug showed what may well have been the Morrissey of the 90s, still so breath-robbingly unchanged in his 66th year.
Seizing the microphone with purpose, he swept any notions of stone-faced heralding past the periphery. “I wanna know what love is…and I want you to show me” he spontaneously crooned, evoking a tide of confused grins and chuckles from the anxious sea of faces.
With two slams of his maracas he ushered in the setlist, and we were off. Jesse Tobias and Carmen Vandenberg’s warped and oscillating guitars dove headfirst into ‘Billy Budd’ and ‘I Just Want to See the Boy Happy’ like strafing fighter jets, the crowd crying out in realised anxiety and giddy fulfilment.
Next, and notably very early into the setlist, came ‘Suedehead,’ the solo-debut album hit and Morrissey’s defining independent accomplishment to casual listeners. For a song performed 400-plus times through five decades, it still carried its fey and blunt beauty, and was no doubt a crowd-pleaser as surrounding voices did their best to match the authority of 100 decibels blaring from the venue speakers.
In a pivot typical of this European tour, Morrissey stepped from past glories to modern musical material, brandishing shiny renditions of new singles. The highlight of these was certainly ‘Notre Dame,’ a cloak and dagger accusation of terror, characterised by its nebulous reverb and jabbing electronics.
‘Now My Heart is Full,’ the new ‘Monsters of Pig Alley,’ and the heart-wrenching ‘I Know It’s Over’ expertly threaded together his 80s, 90s, and 2020s bodies through their emotional likeness. For all the power of Morrissey’s piercing corkscrew lyricism and unaged voice though, it did feel at times as though bassist Juan Galeano was as entranced as the audience, his same-sounding plodding bass lines unfortunately muffling much of the miserable magic.
So far, no overt political statements. Some drew sighs of relief, others held their breath. Journalists perched in antithetical bitterness watched on too, awaiting like daws any frightening verbs to pick through with malicious misinterpretation. Wish fulfilled, mask removed. If James Baldwin, Kerouac, and the civilian slaughter of Apocalypse Now on the background screen hadn’t already offered unspoken comment on ongoing events, the next songs ‘Irish Blood, English Heart,’ and ‘World Peace is None of Your Business’ were the harbinger Morrissey openly lamenting global decay. Unlike the ‘GB News talking points’ mentioned by The Guardian, these polemics showed alchemical sympathy and rage at the state of the world. Singing for “Yemen, Bahrain…Russia, Ukraine…so many people in pain,” he seemed nothing but honestly sympathetic and distressed.
Returning to the catchy songs and hits, ‘Jack the Ripper’ (with a mesmerising newly arranged outro and a fair share of crimson lights) and the under-appreciated ‘Best Friend on the Payroll’ from 1995’s Southpaw Grammar made for tasteful inclusions at the show’s close.
A recess gave way to the obvious encore of ‘There is a Light That Never Goes Out’. By now a somewhat exhausted exercise of artistic ennui and fan service, he emerged with this last song, as if to say ‘Yes, I know just why some of you are in attendance; here are my flowers, here’s the song…have my shirt!’. Goodnight, goodnight, goodnight.
Image Credits: Robert Franklin.