Review: Morrissey, St David’s Hall, Cardiff, 15th May 2006
Morrissey has been in a difficult position for sometime now – for many of his fans he can do no wrong, and even the records his fans don’t like get cheered when he chooses to air them live. So this might have explained his muted but obvious disdain for a crowd that found it difficult to be wound up by a set list comprising mostly of tracks from his recently released album, the staggeringly underwhelming Ringleader of the Tormentors. He began with a verve that has, perhaps surprisingly, become expected by anyone who has seen any of his blistering, inspiring live shows of the last few years. (Morrissey has undoubtedly recently become one of the best live acts around.) But here he seemed to find himself confronted by an audience that was just swaying loyally waiting for some of his classics, and it was quite telling that the highlight of the night was Trouble Loves Me, from the poor selling and critically unpopular Maladjusted. Morrissey seemed short tempered at the fact that for all the (frankly bizarre) lauding of his new material by critics it failed to rally his followers in the same way that Still Ill did. Ironically, for the most revered Miserabilist in the English pop pantheon, his problem tonight - as is the problem with his new material - is that he seems to have lost his sense of humour. At Meltdown a few years ago he joked with the crowd, proved his wit in his renditions of the best tracks from You Are The Quarry as well as with an astute selection of solo and Smiths classics. But here he seemed determined to battle on with what is frankly an album of lyrically poor songs, that almost every step seems to bow to lazy sixth-form confessional poetry – and as for the music, if I hear Boz Boorer offer Morrissey another suspended fourth as an excuse for a hook I’m going to succumb to apoplexy rather than my usual half-cut sigh. But truth be told, Morrissey was in superb voice even if the material did not allow him to impress us as much as I Have Forgiven Jesus did at Meltdown. And the band was impressive also; considering how muted and restrained they seemed to sound on the last record, they appeared loose and angry on stage, and pleased to be both. The problem was with material. Three or four less new songs would have been more fitting for such a short set (about an hour with one rapid fire encore, as is his norm), and cramming in the mundane eight-minute dirge that is Life is a Pigtsy (if ever Mozza needed an editor it was when titling this track) actually had me contemplating boredom. Perhaps Morrissey has fallen into the trap of changing his writing technique – it must be said the new material seems to be directly personal, rather than the toyingly abstruse suggestiveness in his previous work; the “is he isn’t he” aspect of all parts of his life has now been replaced by more definitive answers in most peoples minds, and with the erosion of the enigma we seem to be seeing the erosion of that edge and wit that made him so fascinating to follow and adore. His performance was alert and a sturdy, if not wholly successful, go at being Morrissey; his band is tight and will get better as the tour continues. And of course this is Morrissey, so there is no reason why his next record cannot be as surprisingly refreshing as You Are The Quarry or even as dynamic and visceral as his lost masterpiece Southpaw Grammar, and then he will be a sight to see once again.