Palladium, Cologne, Germany1st October 2015
Morrissey
Last year I had the chance to see MORRISSEY for the first time live. Many of us were quite alarmed when we learned about his health issues due to having cancer, which forced him to cancel some of his shows. Recently I watched his first in-person interview for 10 years at the Larry King Now show and was relieved to hear him say that he is doing well on medical treatment and described his health condition as blooming. And talking about depression he declared that he feels happy when performing. So being on stage is a kind of his therapy. Thus he can make us happy with his concerts.
Charismatic, cynical, unpredictable, charming, brilliantly witty, blessed musician with a distinctive voice are the attributes that spring to my mind when thinking of MORRISSEY. He is surely a person who strongly polarises. A diplomatic attitude is not his thing. You love or hate him- there is no in between. It seems that he is a living contradiction. But one has to acknowledge that he with THE SMITHS, as well as solo artist, influenced a lot of other musicians. In the early 80’s he was the flagship of the style forming and very successful Indie Rock band THE SMITHS. After the disbanding he started his changeable solo career and moved later to the USA. The main topics of his lyrics were about being an outsider, animal rights, politics, injustice, unrequited love and polysemous sexuality. Self- deprecation and linguistic jokes are characteristic for his lyrics. During his solo career he released 16 studio albums and 2 best of/ greatest hits albums. The current album ‚World peace is none of your business‘ was just launched last year. http://uk.mporium.org / https://www.facebook.com/Morrissey
Music & Performance
This time there was no supporting act but instead there were diverse video clips with music displayed. Loud cheering started when a classical intro was played and the band members and finally the MOZZER finally entered the stage and greeted the fans with “Kunst, Kunst, Kunst!” (Art, art, art!). With ‘Suedehead‘ we already had our first sing along song. The show was nearly sold-out and unfortunately we couldn’t get a place closer to the stage so that - being quite small persons - the view was not that good and only now and then we could catch a glimpse on MORRISSEY. Thus more the music and the atmosphere of the crowd carried us away. For the second song Gustavo Manzur sang the second half of the song in Spanish language and proved that he also can sing very nicely. With the video to ‘Ganglord‘, MORRISSEY showed that he is not only an animal rights activist but also despises violence and injustice towards people as it showed quite drastically a collection of (real life) video footages of police violence towards people they pursued. Definitely horrible and shocking to see what people do to others. I’m not naive, I know this happens every day everywhere but nevertheless it shows that something is going wrong in our societies, especially those which call themselves democratic.
But back to the concert. From what I could see MORRISSEY was fit and in an excellent performing mood and this transferred to the audience which sang along, cheered and gave thunderous applauses after each song. For the song ‘The world is full of crashing bores‘ a photo of Kate and William could be seen in the background to underline his disdain of the British Royal family. Noticeable and quite charming was that he thanked the audience after each song in a different language but also told us a little funny anecdote that he bought a book with a CD ‚German in 30 days‘ but gave up and that was 30 years ago, asking us why we make it so hard. After the first half of his setlist he introduced each band member before ‘Everyday is like Sunday‘ with an alteration in the refrain as he was singing then ‘Quando, quando, quanco?‘ (When, when, when?) which was a bit confusing for a moment. We learnt about the shame of Spain (‘The bullfighter dies‘) accompanied to Spanish guitar sound. With the song ‘I will see you in far - off places‘ we were presented almost a kind of Rock song with Arabian sound elements, so powerful that one was almost allured to start head banging.
An integral part of his live shows is THE SMITHS song ‘Meat is murder‘ underlined with a video that shows how livestock is kept and slaughtered ending with the question “What is your excuse?”. Even for me as a vegan it is hard to watch, though I know that exactly this is happening every day, and it always makes me cry. But this caused a little dramatic situation as young man fainted just a few meters in front of us. This accident was reason enough to be reported later by a magazine though apparently the journalist failed to do some proper research, stating that this video was shown on this concert. Well, if you know MORRISSEY, his attitude and his concerts or just research thoroughly, you know that he performs this song and shows such videos at every concert. After two further songs the MOZZER and his band left, but of course the audience demanded loudly an encore and once again he returned for ‘The Queen is dead‘ with a photomontage of the Queen showing both middle fingers. Well, he has a special kind of humour as well. Before he left for good he shook hands with some fans who effectively have made it to climb over the barrier and to all of our excitement he pulled off his shirt and threw it into the crowd and made one fan very happy for sure.
Summarizing I have to say it was once again a fantastic show even though my view was very limited. And I was very taken by the setlist that differed so much from the songs he performed last year. Often you notice at concerts of your favourite bands or musicians that they present almost similar setlists for many years banking on their songs that have approved at live shows to get the crowds going. Thus Morrissey is a pleasant exception and whenever I have the chance to see him again, I will be there.
Setlist
01. Classical intro
02. Suedehead
03. Speedway
04. Ganglord
05. Alma matters
06. You have killed me
07. Kiss me a lot
08. Reader meet author
09. Oboe concerto
10. The world is full of crashing bores
11. World peace is none of your business
12. I’m throwing my arms around Paris
13. Everyday is like Sunday
14. The bullfighter dies
15. Staircase at the University
16. Yes, I’m blind
17. I will see you in far- off places
18. Meat is murder (The Smiths song)
19. Boxers
20. What she said (The Smiths song with ‘Rubber ring‘ outro)
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19. The Queen is dead (The Smiths song)
Rating
Music: 10
Performance: 10
Sound: 9
Light: 9
Total: 9.5 / 10
All pictures by Michael Gamon (http://www.sparklingphotos.de)
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