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MORRISSEY - London Camden Roundhouse - 25 January 2008
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Written by Mark Reed
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Friday, 01 February 2008
Get Off The Stage? ...and it all started so well. At 8.50 (prompt, by any standard), the lights of the Camden Roundhouse dimmed, and the five members of Morrissey's backing band assembled on stage, lead by the enigmatic/elusive truculent and devious leader, a 48 year old man of undeclared sexuality and at best, an enigmatic artiste. 4
The band, coiled like a spring, gently run through the only-played-twice-during-The-Smiths "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want" which is gentle, beautiful, and all too short. Morrissey's voice sounds oddly strained, as he avoids the high notes, but aside from this, he offers little to us. Following this up with "The Last Of The Famous International Playboys" the oshow is instantly, in terms of style, momentum, and narrative, far better than the opening Monday night. An important thing about any set that sometimes bands forget is how important it is to pace the evening with the right songs in the right order, that make a thematic and emotionally understandable set of peaks and troughs : the present the songs in a way that complement each other. The earlier, and I felt unsatisfactory set of Monday in terms of order appears to have been banished into something that makes a more coherent sense.
Nonetheless, after the oddly reminiscent-of-Billy-Budd of Something Is Squeezing My Skull, Moz offers his longest pronouncement of the night. "Steroids? Cortiszone? Spray? USELESS."
The band start "I Just Want To See The Boy Happy", which is at best average fare. Not helped is Moz's below par performance : he fails to sing most of the notes, missing the higher parts, twirling the mic to the crowd, and sits out the second part of the song so his backing band perform the vocals. At the songs conclusion - 21.12pm - he walks off.
11 minutes later - Russell Brand, Jonathan Ross, and David Walliams appear.
"Gigs off", I say. I'm right. To hails and bottles, we leave the venue.Only registered users can write comments.
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