Louder Than War: Morrissey: SSE Arena Wembley, London – live review (March 19, 2020)

[Famous when dead]

Louder Than War writer Phil Ross and photographer Svenja Block risk pestilence to peer into the soul of Morrissey, one of music’s most perplexing personalities.

Morrissey: SSE Arena Wembley, London - live review | Louder Than War

overall, tonight’s show is splendid and the vast majority of fans will be delighted but there are cracks.

louderthanwar.com

(10 images in article).

Regards,
FWD.

 

[Nerak]

Louder Than War writer Phil Ross and photographer Svenja Block risk pestilence to peer into the soul of Morrissey, one of music’s most perplexing personalities.

Morrissey: SSE Arena Wembley, London - live review | Louder Than War

overall, tonight’s show is splendid and the vast majority of fans will be delighted but there are cracks.

louderthanwar.com

(10 images in article).

Regards,
FWD.

Not bad... although I don't think Morrissey is a terrible person. I think he was just being undiplomatic. He's been talking about James Baldwin for a LONG time & the picture has been around for a while. I don't think he's trying to 'rehabilitate' himself, he's the same as he always was, but no one was paying attention. And he can't be David from The National Front Disco because he's not ethnically English, he's ethnically Irish.

I think it's true that his creative brain & the bit of his brain that can't stop him chattering are two different things. He's complicated & contrary.

He does SEEM to have autistic traits, at the very least we know he has social interaction issues & depression - which makes the hyperbolic press demonization of him even worse. Every one of those hacks should get dragged for doing that to him, because it's been far uglier & more fascist than anything Morrissey has ever said or done.

Anyway - I hope we're at the real turning point - & Moz finds an artistic direction for his elder years & the press stop the hounding & start being nice to him (& accurate) before he's gone.

 

[Mozmar]

Stephen Patrick Morrissey?
Argghhh!!

 

[Nerak]

Stephen Patrick Morrissey?
Argghhh!!

I was too distracted by fuming about the 'terrible person' stuff to notice. Why can't they spell his name?????

 

[Similar2Sunday]

Louder Than War writer Phil Ross and photographer Svenja Block risk pestilence to peer into the soul of Morrissey, one of music’s most perplexing personalities.

Morrissey: SSE Arena Wembley, London - live review | Louder Than War

overall, tonight’s show is splendid and the vast majority of fans will be delighted but there are cracks.

louderthanwar.com

(10 images in article).

Regards,
FWD.

Thanks to this piece for identifying one of the pre-show clips as from the film The Caretaker (1963) based on the Harold Pinter play "The Guest."
The pre-show clip starts around 39:40 ("I've got your bag..."):
Otherwise, I'm sorry to say, the article is uninformed. The writer admits that they haven't seen a Morrissey show since... 1984. With the Smiths. "I assume that Morrissey himself curated the video show." Yes... he did. This information could be easily verified by asking basically anyone who has been to a Morrissey show in the past twenty years.

Too much is read into the pre-show songs and videos: "did the scenes from Bela Lugosi’s Dracula and Harold Pinter’s The Guest represent isolation and instability? Did the Ricky Wilde and Lou Reed tracks represent alienation? [...] The imagery is relentless: Dee Dee Ramone’s obsession with Nazism, a drag queen ranting about nationalism, Sam Cooke with white backing singers." The Ramones video has been on the pre-show videos for quite some time and there is no reference to Dee Dee's Nazism in the Loudmouth video. There is no Sam Cooke video, but I assume the writer is referencing one of the many pre-show videos featuring African-American artists which, again, have been a staple of the pre-show videos for quite some time. There is no secret, hidden message here. Perhaps the choice of Hong Kong Garden by Siouxsie is simply.. because it's a good song and one of her most well-known rather than having any race subtext? The "drag queen ranting about nationalism" (David Hoyle) again, has been on the pre-show videos for several years and it is clearly taking a jab at nationalism rather than supporting it.