Review: Morrissey, Hammersmith Apollo, 21 September 2015 by Marcus Markou

Don’t get me wrong. Morrissey was incredible. Morrissey is incredible. He is a force. He has the power to rewire you from the inside. I came home with an artistic buzz. He is artists’ ecstasy.

I say to my wife Victoria, who came with me, “I want to stay up all night and write. That is what I want to do”.

“Do it,” she says.

Instead, I foolishly lie down in the dark for the next four or five hours unable to sleep, my mind on shuffle alternating between Speedway and The Queen is Dead.

The madness of attempting sleep in this state was broken three times in the night. Constantine, our youngest, had a nightmare. Hector, our one-eared refugee cat from Cyprus, howled like a child loon and Alexander, our eldest, cursed Hector for waking him.

“Get out!” he screamed.

Outside, the cosmos was in alignment with the internal schism of the household. Rain and wind.

The energy of a Morrissey concert is something else. I mused on this through a sleepless but surprisingly upbeat night. I also pondered on ex-girlfriends and failed friendships. Broken images and imaginary conversations were underscored by Morrissey, my ears still buzzing. In a half state of consciousness I was asking myself whether Morrissey had fused punk with opera. It seemed like a good idea at 4am. And why did Oboe Concerto remind me of being 14 again and listening to Hunky Dory for the first time? Hunky Dory, Morrissey, all so strangely seductive.

Could this really be the last time? I tweeted Manclad earlier in the day about Artie Shaw giving up the clarinet and becoming a novelist. Artie Shaw was huge. A maverick. In an age before pop stars he was a pop star. He sold over 100 million records and was a pioneer in fusing jazz with classical… okay, okay. You get the picture. Artie Shaw was big and he was very big with the clarinet and one day he just dropped it. Just like that. He literally put down his clarinet and never played it again. He picked up a pen and never stopped writing.

Victoria and I are crossing the road. We arrive early at Hammersmith. As we cross a man next to us says: “Is it a Morrissey gig?”

“Yes,” I reply.

“That’s so cool. Are you going?”

Victoria is only seconds into her first Morrissey gig and I already feel validated. She’s brimming with gig coolness.

“Apparently, it’s going to be his last,” I say.

“Ha! Yeah. They all say that,” the man says.

“Yeah,” I say.

“Yeah,” says Victoria.

“Have a great time!” The man says. And gone.

“You see,” I say to Victoria. “Something about Morrissey brings complete strangers together… It’s so blue rose,” I add.

Victoria rolls her eyes.

We are so early. I assumed doors at 7pm and Morrissey would be on at 8pm. We sit in the balcony – close to the front. I take a few pictures and tweet. A striking blonde in the immediate row in front of us is having trouble locating her seats. A few minutes later, Russell Brand, the comedian-actor-activist, appears alongside the same blonde and also seems to be having trouble with the seats. He is fidgety.

Victoria and I are momentarily star struck. It quickly fades. The temptation to be star struck and take pictures is replaced by a sense of dignity – for us and the celebrity. He is human after all. A man a few rows further down has no shame. He whips out his phone. Russell Brand crosses his arms into an ‘X’ and pulls a pose for the photo.

“Was he just doing an X Factor pose?” I ask?

“I think he’s trying to get better seats,” whispers Victoria.

Russell Brand is looking down towards the front of the balcony, speaking on his phone, and at one point goes down and starts a conversation with someone, pointing back towards the row in front of us.

“Look at me… don’t look at me… Look at me… don’t look at me,” whispers Victoria. “Massive ego issues,” she adds. Victoria is also in recovery.

“I still like him,” I whisper back.

“I do to,” Victoria says.

“His spat with Fox News was one of the best things ever,” I say. “He took on an entire mind control programme,” I add. The new world order reference is lost on Victoria but she is in agreement.

“He looks lost,” she adds.

“On the list of the lost?” I reply. But the eponymous reference to the forthcoming novel by Morrissey is… well, ironically, lost.

On the screen, Leo Sayer is singing, Won’t Let the Show Go On dressed as a clown.

“I told you!” I almost scream to my wife who is a Leo Sayer fanatic and cites One Man Band in her top 50 all time. “Morrissey has amazing taste in music.”

“Shit,” I say.

“What?”

“It’s just occurred to me that Leo Sayer’s clown look was four or five years before Bowie… Fuck… Bowie copied Sayer!”

“Sayer was ahead of his time. Please listen to the lyrics on One Man Band,” Victoria pleads.

“Victoria. You’ve been asking me to do that for 23 years...” I leave a space for comic timing then add, “I’ll do it on Monday.”

The video presentation builds to a climax and Morrissey enters to high operatic gusto. He starts to sing alone without a band and then jokes about it before going into his set.

As I said at the beginning of this review. Morrissey is an incredible artist. His vocals were stunning. I spent half the concert leaning over to Victoria saying, “Fucking hell. How good is his voice?”

Victoria always responding with, “It’s amazing.”

At this point I would like to point out that Victoria was a big fan of the Smiths and Morrissey as a teen and dated someone that looked like him. She tweeted this. She loves Suedehead with a passion so when it came on I was delighted for her.

My standouts were Oboe Concerto, Speedway, Crashing Bores, and The Queen is Dead – if only because these were the songs that seemed to have embedded themselves into me through a sleepless night. But it was great to hear Staircase at the University, World Peace is None of Your Business and The Bullfighter Dies – which are starting to form longterm relationships with me. It takes time for songs to become part of your core memory. The songs from World Peace are starting to do that.

But there was something in the energy tonight. Where the O2 in November had flamboyance, flair and a tenderness, here at the Apollo there was a slight impatience, a shortness. Just a pinch of it.

“I love you,” Morrissey was saying. “I am so grateful for your support… but there is a new love in my life. I don’t know whether it will work out but I am excited for us. You might just have to let me go – as you did when I left before. I may come back. I may not. I don’t actually know. But if I seem a little disconnected… well, you can understand why…”

And I do understand. I am probably more excited about the idea of Morrissey giving up music for literature than is acceptable. But I am a writer too. I am excited for him. 

"He will never give up music," Victoria says. 

"Artie Shaw did," I reply.

"He has so much to say and he says it well. I don’t care whether he says it in song or in tweets... I wish Morrissey was on Twitter," I lament.