"Can you stand it?" Morrissey asks his fans.
Oh, they most certainly bloody can.
Moz was slightly more talkative and frisky than he was at his last show in KC, in 2007. Though the show ran mostly seamlessly from one big, chugging misery ode to the next, the 50-year-old self-loathing charmer did parley a bit with the not-small but not-sold-out crowd at the Midland.
The above question came after the ninth song, "Seasick, Yet Still Docked." Before that, after turning out the Smiths' "I Keep Mine Hidden," he said, "Are you feeling sick? Was it the Cheez-Its? You were warned."
And before that quip, he'd introduced the band -- Boz Boorer (guitar, Morrissey's faithful Samwise Gamgee), Solomon Walker (bass), Matt Walker (drums), Jesse Tobias (guitar), Kristopher Pooley (keys) -- concluding with, "And I'm nasty."
Toward the end, he even passed his mic into the front row, allowing audience members to speak their minds. This led to at least one requisite "I love you" and also to an exchange with a woman that was hard to hear but seemed to involve her asking Morrissey if he'd received the gift she sent him in Columbus, which she ordered off eBay. I have no idea what the gift was, but I like to think it was a gingerbread house.
And as per recent custom, the sexy ol' tiger stripped off his shirt (he sweated through several, one which he claimed he bought in Kansas City) during "Let Me Kiss You" -- precisely at the line about seeing someone you physically despise -- and threw it into the crowd.
Mostly, though, through this 90-minute set, Morrissey let his eyebrows (how like a New Yorker Talk of the Town illustration he is), his cantering croon and his prizefighting, gong-equipped backing band do the talking.
Most people at any given Morrissey show claim to be Smiths fans and thus don't care about much that the group's former frontman has put out since the early '90s. They want to hear Smiths songs and maybe "Suedehead." (Members of this group who are too young to have heard the Smiths the first time around yet diss on older Moz are particularly insufferable.) Then there are others who are new to the party, probably having met the singer only after his '03 comeback, with You Are the Quarry. Still, neither group, I'm sure, wanted to hear seven songs off the new one, especially if "All You Need is Me" and "That's How People Grow Up" were not among those seven. Instead, we got the deeper cuts from Years of Refusal, causing the show to drag toward the end.
You've got to give Morrissey credit for doing his best to forge a sound of his own. Absent from all of his music post Smiths is anything like Johnny Marr's trademark bright, jingly guitar. Whereas the Smiths were a light skiff instrumentally, sparse and punky, Morrissey's solo music has gotten bigger, louder and more barge-like with every album. (Some might attribute this to the late Jerry Finn's production work on Refusal and Quarry.) Sometimes, a catchy melody will emerge, but much of the music stomps and thrashes, building to whirling-dervish climaxes of distortion and strobe. Over it all, Morrissey does what he does best: in line after line of plain-spoken, carefully chosen and precise phrases, he describes his agony and self-hatred. He does not mince words. She told me she loved me, which means/She must be insane, he sings in the axiomatically titled "How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel." Next verse: I've had my face dragged in 15 miles of shit/And I do not, and I do not and I do not like it.
Of course, you have to laugh, in part because of the brazenness and completeness with which Morrissey lays out his complaints as incontrovertible fact -- the overriding one being that no one has nor ever will love him. And because you have a lurking feeling that what he's saying is true. There's no hope in modern life, he sings on the anti-depressant-themed "Something Is Squeezing My Skull," and the reason why is because of all the other looming concerns in an individual's life -- the economy, the environment, health care -- the one that never goes away is the constant existential crisis over never really being able to know another person. And if you can't know another person, doesn't that make love a lie, or, rather, a terrible joke?
Sorry. Pardon this sleep-deprived, slightly hungover English major. In all, it was a good but not great show. The encore was a bit odd. Rather than deliver the baroque "away-a-hay-a-hay" syllables on the chorus of "First Gang to Die," Morrissey sputtered and jibbered like Popeye. The band was good -- tight, stone-faced and rockin'. And the Midland theater, of course, is beautiful.
Set list
This Charming Man
Billy Budd
Black Cloud
How Soon Is Now
Irish Blood, English Heart
When Last I Spoke to Carol
How Could Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel?
I Keep Mine Hidden
Seasick, Yet Still Docked
Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others
Let Me Kiss You
Death of a Disco Dancer
The Loop
Something Is Squeezing My Skull
The World Is Full of Crashing Bores
I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris
Sorry Doesn't Help
Ask
One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell
I'm OK by Myself
encore
First of the Gang to Die
Interesting note: Morrissey's drummer, Matt Walker, played with Smashing Pumpkins after the original drummer got fired (the first time). He also played with Billy Corgan on the solo tour on which late local band Doris Henson provided support. Among my party at last night's show was Doris trombone player Mike Walker (no relation), and he says that on that tour, DH convinced Matt to set up an extra drumset and play with Doris on the song "The Power" at a couple of gigs. Trivia question, yo!
And here's that requested video. Props to Annie Z.
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KC i think got the better show. i bow.
http://tinyurl.com/d29xa7
and as Moz himself says, "I can have both" -- in terms of fandom, that is!
Vauxhall & I is my favorite Moz, hands down. I'm just saying I know too damn many people who think that loving the Smiths means hating Morrissey. I think you can love both.
dear jason,
you should know that on night one of morrissey's tour of what my pal Kami calls Moz-ourri, he played "some girls..." for the first time on the entire tour last night. post the youtube video that already exists, pls!
also, any true Moz fan wants to hear stuff from the '90s, especially because Vauxhall & I is amazing ("Billy Budd"?! OMG!) and Southpaw Grammar is underrated (he didn't play "Best Friend on the Payroll" last night, which is sad). honestly -- AND THIS IS TOTALLY CONTROVERSIAL, I KNOW -- i never need to hear "how soon is now?" live ever again.
great review, though. i'm going tonight, and will report back tomorrow.
love,
hairdresser on fire
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