Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Grado / Diga Nazario Sauro / Italy
Concert date: 13.07.2012
Attendance: 1000
Ticket price: €43.00 (presale) / €40.00 (day of show)
A special evening went down in mid-July on the Italian coast, not far from Slovenia, in the town of Grado. The great Morrissey rolled into ”our” neck of the woods: the influential, adored, cult ‘frontman’ of the English band The Smiths, who split up a whole twenty-five years ago. He’s one of those rare musical names of our time who reached icon status while still alive. He’s one of the best lyricists to ever walk this planet. His lyrics are pure poetry. He’s real and sensitive at the same time. His words are full of images and expressions of everyday pain and upheaval, which he then fills with timeless themes: the meaning of life, love, rejection, loneliness, being misunderstood, social criticism and so on. ”Mozza” is a man who divides people. You either love him or hate him. You either feel it or you don’t. There’s no middle ground. Plenty has already been said about his controversial side. That controversy has little to do with the modern, banal, quickly forgotten excesses of today’s stars. It goes much deeper, and it’s not just about the facade of behavior. It’s mostly about resonant social and societal stances that, with their sharpness and sincerity, cut into even the most neutral spheres of existence. Even some of his more personal themes (like the one about asexuality, born of romantic disappointments) touch the hearts of many people who can relate to them, if only for a moment. Whatever you make of it, Morrissey is a man who doesn’t mince words, and that’s exactly why he’s a disruptive factor in today’s music industry. For a year now he hasn’t been able to find a label willing to release his already finished album. You could feel that raw temperament at the show too. In general, his musical aesthetics are constantly mixed up with his ethics, and over the years the two have become more and more inseparable. He’s an animal rights advocate, a vegetarian, a fierce opponent of the British monarchy and the royal family, yet still a great patriot (even though he’s been living in Los Angeles since the nineties for the sake of peace and quiet).
Morrissey, who’s now fifty-three springs old and has thirteen albums behind him (solo and with The Smiths), hasn’t changed much over all these years (a pound less, a pound more, one more wrinkle, one hair less….). The sentimental, romantic, gentle Mozza can turn into a roaring, wild beast in an instant. His baritone gets even rougher with the years, and uniquely flawless. The clothes stay the same (elegant shirts in assorted colors and trousers with a crease), just suited to his age. The flower decorations, though, he’s given up for good. The summer festival in Grado is tailor-made for romantics or (freshly) smitten couples. The intimate setting by the Adriatic Sea seemed from the very start like the perfect venue for an artist like Morrissey. The stage was small, but the set design was all the more fitting for it. Before the show, images of black-and-white films and music legends from the mid-last century rolled on the screens, and during the concert the famous image of Oscar Wilde kept the crew and Morrissey company on stage, constantly asking (in a speech bubble) ”Who is Morrissey?” (yet another witty paraphrase that has followed Wilde around for quite a while now, especially in English culture). Warming up the crowd before the show was the impressive American vocalist and musician Kristeen Young. Morrissey himself walked on stage around ten in the evening, after a long instrumental intro. That night he looked visibly tired, but by no means out of sorts. He’s a refined performer, both theatrically and vocally. He flirted and chatted with the audience the whole time, dropped witty one-liners, but also touched on more serious topics, like animal rights and what really counts in life (”only touch can change you in this life”), and sweet-talked the Italian fans (”I sing in English, I dream in Italian”), crossed himself at least three times and changed his shirt just as many times. The front rows had been taken since late afternoon by crowds of ‘Morrissey ultras’ who never miss a show and know every song by heart. Even when Morrissey provocatively asked whether ”anyone has died recently” and whether anyone wanted to say something about that person or matter, the fans’ responses were ”I love you, Morrissey”, ”I want to marry you, Morrissey” and the like. The euphoria among the ”hard-core” fans is still there, even though Morrissey is no longer exactly the dewy-eyed young frontman of the best-known and most influential English alternative band of the eighties.
The real question I’d been asking myself before the show was how well his backing band would do. All fears of a watered-down Morrissey were unfounded. ”Boom Action Group”, as I dubbed them because of the writing on their T-shirts, worked superbly and with their musical virtuosity delivered plenty of great concert moments. They’re true masters of building tension and read Morrissey’s body language extremely well. They sounded harmonious throughout and proved to be one of the best backing bands I’ve seen in my life. The set itself ran twenty songs and lasted an hour and forty-five minutes. Morrissey’s song selection this time wasn’t made up of nothing but hits (as on the previous tour), but focused on (broadly speaking) lesser-known songs. Still, plenty of hits weren’t missing, and he even played songs from The Smiths era (six of them, no less). The sound was really bad at the start, but it got fixed very quickly, and after that there were no needless sound glitches or dropouts. Among the songs, the standouts were the opener How Soon Is Now?, the dynamic You Have Killed Me, the divine Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me, the melancholic Every Day Is Like Sunday, the genius Speedway, the socially critical Meat Is Murder (the accompanying video showed footage of animals being slaughtered, mostly livestock for the meat-processing industry) and the painful Still Ill (whose standout lines Does the body rule the mind / Or does the mind rule the body? question the basic human questions of our own nature, touching on the relationship between mind and urges, physicality, passion…). The peak of the night came in the encore, with the moving, timeless I Know It’s Over, which Morrissey sang so heartfelt it was as if he were singing it for the last time. Tears were unavoidable. A powerful musical repertoire that didn’t even suffer from the absence of numerous hits (for example: There Is a Light That Never Goes Out, Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want and Last Of The Gang To Die, which he did play, mind you, at the soundcheck before the show).
An unforgettable evening/night, and not just because of the concert. The five-hour ”journey” home was special too. An accident near Ravbarkomanda caused a couple-hour traffic jam on the highway, which served up plenty of adventures: a man who decided to continue down the highway on foot with just a suitcase, run-ins with ”rip-off” vignette sellers, sleeping truckers, and a strange sense of humor sprouting up among everyone on this tour of adventure. Anyway, it was all worth it for Morrissey.
Setlist
1. How Soon Is Now?
2. You Have Killed Me
3. I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris
4. Shoplifters Of The World Unite
5. Ouija Board, Ouija Board
6. Black Cloud
7. Scandinavia
8. Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me
9. Let Me Kiss You
10. Everyday Is Like Sunday
11. Action Is My Middle Name
12. To Give (The Reason I Live)
13. Speedway
14. One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell
15. You’re The One For Me, Fatty
16. Meat Is Murder
17. Maladjusted
18. Still Ill
19. I Will See You In Far-Off Places
—encore—
20. I Know It’s Over
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