lainey
Active Member
The concert review are all so sweet and positive, they are a delight to read.
1st up The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/arts/music/19morr.html
A Meticulous Desolation, Tended With Discipline
MONTCLAIR, N.J. — In Morrissey’s concert here on Monday night, the band was the nail in the floor, holding down the music with unchangeable arrangements, and the singer was the balloon attached to the nail, tossing and gesticulating. The design was anachronistic, almost classical: it could have been a concert by any number of singers in pop’s old days who arrived in town and chanced into a good, hard-working pickup band.
But the band was Morrissey’s own, and almost nothing during his show at the Wellmont Theater happened by chance. All five of his musicians dressed in blue work shirts, as if to stress the point that they worked on a schedule: you want this song medium-fast, punk-rock rhythm with a quarter-note feel in the high-hat, heavy guitars with no solos? We’ll have it done yesterday, boss.
Meanwhile Morrissey lolled in the continuous anguished, self-involved present, singing about how nobody loves him, but he supposes it doesn’t matter anyway because most people are fickle and boring. He can act out both “I’m too young for this” and “I’m too old for this” and demonstrate that they’re basically the same thought. At the end of “How Soon Is Now” he lay on the stage in a fetal position: his one extravagant physical gesture in an exactly 90-minute set. And introducing “Something Is Squeezing My Skull,” the muscley, two-and-a-half-minute whine that will be his next single in England, he seemed almost fatalistic. “I know,” he intoned, “some of you may be thinking, ‘Why bother?’ ”
Morrissey has studied anguished self-involvement. Whether he truly lives it doesn’t matter, because he knows its name and phone number. But at this point — he turns 50 in May and left his native England long ago — he looks like a man with an enviably ordered life. He’s well-preserved and well-exercised. He oversees a thriving practice: the songs on his ninth solo album, “Years of Refusal,” often seem like amped-up second-generation copies of older Morrissey songs, which in turn look and sound like the good songs by his beloved 1980s band, the Smiths. The lyrics are always and unmistakably Morrissey’s, with their gyres of loathing and need; the music is written by close-at-hand collaborators. (One of his principal songwriters, Boz Boorer, plays guitar in his touring group.)
There’s some distance here between artist and artifice. Whether it’s ironic or self-protective or just good business is difficult to tell, and that was part of what made Monday’s show, which was in many ways rote, also very good.
On Monday, through his lyrics, he played his character, who lives by extreme emotions, and the band played the stabilizing force behind him. But you could also see it the other way around: Morrissey was the stolid deedholder in the dangerous winds of a snarling rock band and a limited but insanely devoted audience. For the most part he sang with efficacy and accuracy, saving his falsetto for a couple of well-timed moments. One was the last note of the last song of the set, and the title made its own point: “I’m O.K. by Myself.”
Morrissey’s physical language was mostly refined and small and practical: a raised hand for emphasis, some delicate cross-stepping five feet to the right or left. Twice he took off his well-fitting dress shirts, and both times he threw the shirt to the audience: an impressive expense for Montclair, on the 11th night of a 78-show tour. He was telling us that he sympathizes with anyone flighty enough to worship a pop star. He was also telling us, perhaps, that he has calculated his own worth.
The next one is
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09078/956679-42.stm
After long absence, Morrissey charms Pittsburgh crowd
Thursday, March 19, 2009
By Scott Mervis, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
As it turns out, it was nothing personal.
Morrissey seemed positively charmed to be on a stage in Pittsburgh after 23 years, to the point where he even gave us the shirt off his back.
There were no apologies for the two previous no-shows or belaboring of the point Tuesday night at the sold-out Carnegie Music Hall. Morrissey took the stage, saying, "After a hundred years ... hello" and launched right into "This Charming Man," one of just a few favorites in the set list from his beloved Smiths.
Morrissey was ailing in recent weeks, forced to cancel six dates, but, as the song goes, he's not still ill. One of great crooners of the post-punk era, he was in beautiful voice, whether it was caressing the woeful ballads, raving through driving rockers like the new "Something is Squeezing My Skull" or reaching for the operatic falsettos on the climactic "First of the Gang to Die."
His energy level lagged only a few times in a room that approached the temperature of one of Carnegie's mills. The band, led by guitarist Boz Boorer, added a good deal to that heat, and was worthy of a few more opportunities to truly let loose.
It wasn't the set list the average Morrissey would have written. We did get the pulsing melodrama of "How Soon is Now?" and a delicate "Death of a Disco Dancer" ("love, peace and harmony ... very nice, but maybe in the next world") from the Smiths catalog, along with the playful "Ask." Solo favorites such as "Everyday is Like Sunday," "Suedehead" and "The Last of the International Playboys" were shelved in favor of some lesser lights like "Why Don't You Find Out for Yourself" and "That's How People Grow Up."
"Irish Blood, English Heart" was timely and heartfelt on a St. Patrick's Day. One deep cut, "Seasick, Yet Still Docked," turned out to be a highlight, a swaying ballad that mimicked its title, with Morrissey crooning, "Wish I had the charm to attract the one I love/But you see, I've got no charm."
It's the kind of line he loves to sing, even though it's far from the truth. Even covered in sweat, The Moz has a natural elegance, a romantic streak from a bygone era, as he pours out lovelorn songs like "I'm OK By Myself."
"I know it looks very easy ... it is," he quipped at one point.
But we know that's not true. Morrissey writes songs that are challenging to sing, songs that many pop singers would have no clue how to handle, and he didn't shy away from them.
Of course, he was received ecstatically by the crowd, some of whom charged the stage to grab him, occasionally quite roughly. One had the nerve to pull his hair -- who pulls Morrissey's hair?
Although some fans were calling for it, he didn't do "On the Streets I Ran," which references Pittsburgh in unflattering fashion, but during "I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris," he did change a lyric to "There is no one in Pittsburgh I'm afraid of..."
Now that we have that all cleared up and we're friends again, perhaps he can return sooner than 23 years -- and treat fans to some of other songs they were dying to hear.
1st up The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/arts/music/19morr.html
A Meticulous Desolation, Tended With Discipline
MONTCLAIR, N.J. — In Morrissey’s concert here on Monday night, the band was the nail in the floor, holding down the music with unchangeable arrangements, and the singer was the balloon attached to the nail, tossing and gesticulating. The design was anachronistic, almost classical: it could have been a concert by any number of singers in pop’s old days who arrived in town and chanced into a good, hard-working pickup band.
But the band was Morrissey’s own, and almost nothing during his show at the Wellmont Theater happened by chance. All five of his musicians dressed in blue work shirts, as if to stress the point that they worked on a schedule: you want this song medium-fast, punk-rock rhythm with a quarter-note feel in the high-hat, heavy guitars with no solos? We’ll have it done yesterday, boss.
Meanwhile Morrissey lolled in the continuous anguished, self-involved present, singing about how nobody loves him, but he supposes it doesn’t matter anyway because most people are fickle and boring. He can act out both “I’m too young for this” and “I’m too old for this” and demonstrate that they’re basically the same thought. At the end of “How Soon Is Now” he lay on the stage in a fetal position: his one extravagant physical gesture in an exactly 90-minute set. And introducing “Something Is Squeezing My Skull,” the muscley, two-and-a-half-minute whine that will be his next single in England, he seemed almost fatalistic. “I know,” he intoned, “some of you may be thinking, ‘Why bother?’ ”
Morrissey has studied anguished self-involvement. Whether he truly lives it doesn’t matter, because he knows its name and phone number. But at this point — he turns 50 in May and left his native England long ago — he looks like a man with an enviably ordered life. He’s well-preserved and well-exercised. He oversees a thriving practice: the songs on his ninth solo album, “Years of Refusal,” often seem like amped-up second-generation copies of older Morrissey songs, which in turn look and sound like the good songs by his beloved 1980s band, the Smiths. The lyrics are always and unmistakably Morrissey’s, with their gyres of loathing and need; the music is written by close-at-hand collaborators. (One of his principal songwriters, Boz Boorer, plays guitar in his touring group.)
There’s some distance here between artist and artifice. Whether it’s ironic or self-protective or just good business is difficult to tell, and that was part of what made Monday’s show, which was in many ways rote, also very good.
On Monday, through his lyrics, he played his character, who lives by extreme emotions, and the band played the stabilizing force behind him. But you could also see it the other way around: Morrissey was the stolid deedholder in the dangerous winds of a snarling rock band and a limited but insanely devoted audience. For the most part he sang with efficacy and accuracy, saving his falsetto for a couple of well-timed moments. One was the last note of the last song of the set, and the title made its own point: “I’m O.K. by Myself.”
Morrissey’s physical language was mostly refined and small and practical: a raised hand for emphasis, some delicate cross-stepping five feet to the right or left. Twice he took off his well-fitting dress shirts, and both times he threw the shirt to the audience: an impressive expense for Montclair, on the 11th night of a 78-show tour. He was telling us that he sympathizes with anyone flighty enough to worship a pop star. He was also telling us, perhaps, that he has calculated his own worth.
The next one is
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09078/956679-42.stm
After long absence, Morrissey charms Pittsburgh crowd
Thursday, March 19, 2009
By Scott Mervis, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
As it turns out, it was nothing personal.
Morrissey seemed positively charmed to be on a stage in Pittsburgh after 23 years, to the point where he even gave us the shirt off his back.
There were no apologies for the two previous no-shows or belaboring of the point Tuesday night at the sold-out Carnegie Music Hall. Morrissey took the stage, saying, "After a hundred years ... hello" and launched right into "This Charming Man," one of just a few favorites in the set list from his beloved Smiths.
Morrissey was ailing in recent weeks, forced to cancel six dates, but, as the song goes, he's not still ill. One of great crooners of the post-punk era, he was in beautiful voice, whether it was caressing the woeful ballads, raving through driving rockers like the new "Something is Squeezing My Skull" or reaching for the operatic falsettos on the climactic "First of the Gang to Die."
His energy level lagged only a few times in a room that approached the temperature of one of Carnegie's mills. The band, led by guitarist Boz Boorer, added a good deal to that heat, and was worthy of a few more opportunities to truly let loose.
It wasn't the set list the average Morrissey would have written. We did get the pulsing melodrama of "How Soon is Now?" and a delicate "Death of a Disco Dancer" ("love, peace and harmony ... very nice, but maybe in the next world") from the Smiths catalog, along with the playful "Ask." Solo favorites such as "Everyday is Like Sunday," "Suedehead" and "The Last of the International Playboys" were shelved in favor of some lesser lights like "Why Don't You Find Out for Yourself" and "That's How People Grow Up."
"Irish Blood, English Heart" was timely and heartfelt on a St. Patrick's Day. One deep cut, "Seasick, Yet Still Docked," turned out to be a highlight, a swaying ballad that mimicked its title, with Morrissey crooning, "Wish I had the charm to attract the one I love/But you see, I've got no charm."
It's the kind of line he loves to sing, even though it's far from the truth. Even covered in sweat, The Moz has a natural elegance, a romantic streak from a bygone era, as he pours out lovelorn songs like "I'm OK By Myself."
"I know it looks very easy ... it is," he quipped at one point.
But we know that's not true. Morrissey writes songs that are challenging to sing, songs that many pop singers would have no clue how to handle, and he didn't shy away from them.
Of course, he was received ecstatically by the crowd, some of whom charged the stage to grab him, occasionally quite roughly. One had the nerve to pull his hair -- who pulls Morrissey's hair?
Although some fans were calling for it, he didn't do "On the Streets I Ran," which references Pittsburgh in unflattering fashion, but during "I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris," he did change a lyric to "There is no one in Pittsburgh I'm afraid of..."
Now that we have that all cleared up and we're friends again, perhaps he can return sooner than 23 years -- and treat fans to some of other songs they were dying to hear.
