Morrissey, The Roundhouse, Camden, London, 21-01-08
21/01/08 19:05 Filed in: Gigs
The atmosphere at a Morrissey gig is highly unusual. Working class pint-in-hand lads with open-necked shirts stand beside delicate teenagers, couples who grew up on the Smiths stand beside bull-necked, tattooed heterosexual men with tears in their eyes desperate to touch the hem of his garment. I had a little trouble getting into the venue because of my refusal to bring my passport as photo ID - I had told the Roundhouse box office this on the phone last week and offered to bring my Glastonbury ticket from last year, since it has a photo on it, and was told that would be fine. I waited patiently in the long queue at the box office as arguments raged in front of me - many had not brought any form of photo ID at all, as stipulated on the confirmation email, and were getting increasingly irate at the jobsworth attitude of the Roundhouse worker in charge.
I got to the front, showed her my 'ID'. "Sorry, can't let you in with that". With some restraint, I said I had brought the email and purchasing card and clearly, that was a photo of me. I wasn't willing to bring my passport, given that I'm travelling to America in 3 weeks. 'Not my problem'. I took a breath, 'Clearly, you've had a shitty day and I appreciate that, you've been stitched up by Seetickets and SJM [the promoter] but I'm not a tout, I paid for my ticket, I've brought photo ID, such as it is, here's my card, it's on your system, let's have a bit of common sense here'. She took the card, looked at it and let me in, after having to put my fancy purple wristband on twice because it was too tight the first time, which she did with unconcealed irritation. 'If it comes off we won't replace it'. I thanked her and moved away. That was a touch harder than I had anticipated. I milled around, making friends - I approached a cute young woman with a tattoo of his name on her forearm. She was there with her husband and had travelled from Birmingham. We regaled each other with warmly told tales. 'I'm seeing all the dates on this mini-tour', 'This is my 40th gig!'. 'I saw him in America last year', 'I haven't seen him live since I had his lyrics tattooed on me'. Yes, one of those quotes is me ;-p
So we chatted and laughed and I remembered that, sometimes, Moz fans can be excitable and charming, rather than misanthropic and dour. The venue has an outdoor terraced balcony, a stroke of genius. I went out there for a smoke and got talking to a Dutch journalist, who was in London interviewing Mary J Blige and just got a ticket that day, about Holland and music and all this while overlooking the always busy Camden roads. He had interviewed Moz too, years before, and said he was charming but shy. He told him his music had changed his life and he replied, half sheepishly, half in false modesty, that he was embarrassed by that.
As the time passed I knew I had several days of this to go so I was surprisingly relaxed. I strolled past Keane's Tom Chaplin, who is surprisingly tall. It's ironic that his music is so dull when his taste is so good - he's on the Rufus Wainwright documentary DVD I have too. At 9pm I heard the intro music and entered the hall - as on the last dates I'd seen him play, the intro film was the same. A collection of clips - Bardot, James Dean, David Johansen and Vince Taylor. The curtain dropped to reveal three identical portraits of Richard Burton as the backdrop. On the band walked, then the man himself, to roars. How Soon Is now is not a bad show opener, not bad at all.
I positioned myself on an inch high metal step in front of the mixing desk, standing just behind film critic, 50s aficionado and all round hero Mark Kermode. His quiff attracts the eye when he's on TV. At this gig he fitted in just perfectly. I'd thought I would take it easy, tap my foot, sing along a little but the occasion overcame me and I was jumping around a bit, singing at the top of my lungs. He had played two French warm-up shows in the last few days and I had studiously avoided the setlist. The first show, incidentally, was in remote picturesque town Clermont Ferrand. An odd place to have a gig, one might say. But as soon as I saw the date announced I knew why - Clermont Ferrand is twinned with Salford. It's something I remembered from signs back home saying 'Welcome to Salford - twinned with...'. I'm quite sure Clermont Ferrand is a much prettier locale than Salford! All my intentions of taking it easy on night 1 went out of the window. I should also mention that very rarely at a show have I been reduced to tears but it happened last night as he played Why Don't You Find Out For Yourself, a real beauty of a song from his best solo record, Vauxhall and I. Having never heard any Vauxhall tracks live before I couldn't possibly have been happier to hear that and Billy Budd.
New songs were aired, the best of which is All You Need is Me, and the crowd were whipped into a frenzy by my highlight, the swirling and discordant Smiths song Death of A Disco Dancer. As you'd expect, there was some heckling which I couldn't properly hear. 'Say what you want, I can take it!', he winked. His voice was flawless so I was surprised when he said he had a frog in his throat, 'and I don't mean a small French person'. A man next to me chuckled, 'Ooh, actual racism'. It was a pleasure to hear a cathartic and audacious rendition of National Front Disco - it was quite something to hear 2000 people, from all over the world, sing 'England for the English' with big grins on their faces.
I'd seen him live 6 times before - last night was a delight and to put it in perspective, he played 20 songs and I had only heard 7 of them played live before. It was surprise after surprise and even if tonight's show is exactly the same I'll be glad to hear these new (to me) songs again. In particular, a cheeky, singalong version of one of my favourite songs, The World is Full of Crashing Bores, had me grinning like a fool. I'm doing it all again tonight and tomorrow. Then with Leah on Friday and Saturday - the last show is Sunday. I don't know what condition I'll be in but I guarantee I will hammer it until I drop.