Who is Morrissey?
Morrissey kicked off his North American tour in Boston conveniently on Date Night last week. How nice of him. The Mr. and I hit up one of our favorite bars, jm curley, after work and then enjoyed some good Octoberfest food and beer at Jacob Wirth before crossing the street to Boston’s most opulent venue, the Wang (or whatever it’s called now.) After meeting up with friends in the lobby, we shuffled into our seats and did not have to wait long for the man to appear! SQUEE!!!!!
The “Who is Morrissey? sign flashed behind him most of the time he was singing and I was starting to think maybe the crowd was asking themselves the same question. I’ve seen Moz before and, granted, I’ve been seated in the gay section where everything on earth is more fun, but Friday night’s crowd was LAME. And I was towards the front where the die-hard fans usually are. There are times in life when you need to just ignore, ignore, ignore. So I sang and shouted and screamed and jumped up and down and waved my hands in the air and did my Moz dance that I perfected through hours of The Smiths on repeat in my room as a teen.
Morrissey noted the fancy venue by making fun of how much work “Winnie Wang” had put into painting the ceiling. What I like about him is that he just doesn’t care. And not in an ironic way either. He just sings his songs, does a few dramatic gestures through each one, says a few words like “Nothing. Ever. Changes.” (in reference to our election.) That and his voice. Swoon.
He sang two of my favs, “Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me” and “I Know It’s Over.” Both gutwrenching, angst-ridden, Moz-at-His-Best songs. He also played “Meat is Murder” in a drawn out industrial version with images of animals awaiting slaughter flashing behind him. The Mr. looked away. I kept my eyes squarely on Morrissey and kept thinking “Oh my God! No way! No WAY! He’s playing “Meat is Murder.” Like seriously. Like RIGHT NOW.”
And then. And THEN! He played “How Soon is Now?” The crowd finally figured out who Morrissey was and understood we were about to hear THE SONG. During the last few minutes of it, people rushed on stage and hugged him. I GASPED. Wait, you can do that? Security seemed to be either really ineffective or there had been some agreement to allow people to fling their arms around our hero. The whole way home I grumbled that I wanted to hug Morrissey. Actually, I’m still grumbling.
Oh, and the shirt change count ended at only two. The final shirt went flying into the crowd as he ran off stage.
