Twenty-seven years after The Smiths broke up, the lead singer of the band that influential Brit music rag NME once named most influential artist EVER is still an unapologetically surly prima donna with the voice of a melancholy god and the stage presence of a firebrand. With 80s icons Morrissey, Peter Murphy of Bauhaus and Echo & the Bunnymen all releasing new material and even New Order on an extremely limited tour of the U.S. this summer, it almost feels like 2014 is the soundtrack equivalent of The Breakfast Club meets The Walking Dead. And I, for one, love it. Watching Morrissey crankily play Lawrences Liberty Hall last night was like guzzling wine at a high school reunion with a girl you always wanted to kiss but never thought you had a chance at. Morrisseys butter cream voice slathered the icing onto a triple layer cake of reawakened longing, longsuffering despair and biting wit. You were never sure whether to expect a tender, breathy kiss or a punch in the mouth. It has been more than FOUR DECADESA since Morrissey formed The Smiths with 80s pop legends like Johnny Marr. But that man can STILL SING. Jes aged, of course. When he first appeared on stage, I couldnt help but think he looked like Bruce Campbell from his recent work in Burn Notice. EXACTLY like Burn Notice Bruce. But then Morrissey opened hos mouth, and the comparison disappeared. You can do anything to me, Morrissey teased the crowed as he stalked on stage, his shirt unbuttoned in trademark style halfway to last week. JUST DONT TAKE ME BACK TO LINCOLN, NEBRASKA! The crowd, full of KU, K-State and MU fans, cheered wildly at the apparent insult to the former Big 12 Cornhuskers. Morrissey had played a club there a couple nights earlier ona stage the size of a postage stamp, which didnt sit well with the notoriously persnickety singer. But it may have been the cattle-farming states crowds reaction to a late part of the singers set that put his knickers in a knot. An ardent Vegan, Morrissey led The Smiths to create an album called Meat is Murder in the mid-1980s. Last night he murdered the mood of the crowd with a sudden anti-meat diatribe that featured a GRAPHICALLY VIOLENT and bloody five-minute video on a 30-foot wide screen showing farm animals being dismembered. The previously enthusiastic crowd was visibly less interested in the remaining four songs of his set or even his rather half-ass two-song encore. But prior to his overt, Phred Phelpsian-Phervant, anti-meat rant, Morrissey owned the standing room only crowd, which loved not only his traditional songs but was familiar with his new music as well. And when he sang Every Day is Like Sunday, from his first post-Smiths album, Viva Hate, literally every voice in the audience rose in choeus with his. It was one of the most beautiful three minutes not just of live concert experience but of my life. He held the crowd in SYNC. Sing me to sleep, he whispered in a heartbreaking encore song. Somewhere theres a better world. Morrissey may be right. But as I discovered tonight, with artists of his caliber here, this world has a lot to offer.
Posted on: Wed, 21 May 2014 06:53:10 +0000
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