Morrisey

Morrissey’s big comeback was over three years ago now, and let’s face it he’s hardly the word still on the tip of everyone’s lips. His most recent album ‘Ringleader Of The Tormentors’ was one of his strongest solo efforts ever, but it didn’t capture the public imagination in quite the same way his unashamedly pop ‘You Are The Quarry’ did in 2003.

As a result, this Christmas arena tour seems like a rather bold move. The billboards say sold out, but Nottingham arena have brought the stage forward and cordoned off a good couple of hundred seats at the back, warping the seemingly transparent statement.

But while Morrissey’s media overhaul doesn’t quite live up to its own claims, the might of the man himself and the music he’s built his mopeish empire on still reigns supreme, transcending any ‘public eye’ casting its stare his way.

	"tonight Morrissey upends expectations and hosts a show that is warm, intimate and utterly endearing"

Informal and jovial is tonight’s tone... far from the grandness of his summer tour, as the cold winds draw in Nottingham Arena is shrunk to the size of a tea party in Moz’s front room, such is the sense of intimacy.

With it too comes a more generous set list. Instead of relying heavily on materials from the latest album (as the last tour did), tonight the breadth of his career is represented, with a few surprises thrown in for the most devoted.

From The Smiths’ ‘Panic’, ‘William It Was Really Nothing’ and ‘Girlfriend in a Coma’ to recent pop gems ‘Irish Blood, English Heart’ and ‘You Have Killed Me’, the now greying bequiffed visits limbo-year classics like ‘Every Day Is Like Sunday’ and the media-bating ‘National Front Disco’, received with audience frenzy. B-sides are welcome territory, as ‘Ganglord’ helps wheel out the journalist cliché of saying he does them as well as any of his A-sides – so confident are they he ends the entire set with a roaring ‘Don’t Make Fun Of Daddy’s Voice.’

But it’s not only about the songs tonight. He takes time to talk to the crowd, first greeting uber-fan Julia, who manages to attend every show worldwide (this writer has been to a fair few Morrissey shows in his time, Julia’s always been there too). But so effervescent and keen is he to overstep the sociopath stereotype, he hands his microphone to willing members of the crowd to let them announce themselves to the arena directly.

Far from the over-stated posters trumping a land-swallowing arena tour, tonight Morrissey upends expectations and hosts a show that is warm, intimate and utterly endearing. Who’d have thought the man would be smiling as he sings ode to unrequited love ‘Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want This Time’? Tonight there is no pretence, he may be wheeling out the sentiments that made him famous, but Morrissey is happy, he knows it and he’s not afraid to show it.

FUTURE GIGS

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