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.
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.
