Does one have to be a vegetarian to be a Morrissey fan... ?

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
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27 August

A particular song in Morrissey 25 : Live, about Meat and complete with black-and-white images of creatures and carcasses*, might make you think so. For me, it was the least subtle moment of the night in almost all respects, whether lyrics, message, or even pointing a finger by naming KFC - or in the swoon that Morrissey affected afterwards on his knees.

It must have been affected, because there was a spot perfectly focused to illuminate his back, and spots mean lighting-rigs, and they mean rehearsing the lighting-changes, so he would have hit the mark placed on the stage as much the benefit of those who would see the filmed gig as those at the venue.

That quibble apart, there was much that was spontaneous and warm about this performance, recorded live at Hollywood High School (on 2 March 2013) - obviously not, again, when Morrissey ripped open a shirt that he must have intended to sacrifice (unlike the first two, which he had worn to go offstage and change, and which looked much nicer**) at crucial words about those whose physical appearance one despises, but that was momentary, and gave the fans a moment of nearly baying frenzy when he chucked it into the crowd at the front***.


I watched  with a friend, who could keep me abreast of where, before and after The Smiths, each number came from in Morrissey's recording history. (A couple from the second solo album both sounded heavily redolent of the earlier sound.) We probably also had three or so songs from before he went solo, and I was informed that one later song reflected what happened in litigation between band and former lead singer.

All of which is more than enough to give away the fact that I do not buy Morrissey's albums or go to his gigs, but that was no reason not to watch the cinematic release. (Those who read further afield on this blog will find that I talk about art, but one does not have to like an artist as such to talk about his or her work and try to understand it.)

As to being dramatic, it was clearly not - because of the size of the venue and the difference between the artists - going to compare with something like the video of Peter Gabriel's 'Secret World' tour, and it was really (apart from that mentioned) only the third in the running order that made a striking use of visual material. However, it all did the job of giving one some sense of what it might have been like to be there, and one got wonderfully close to the singing Morrissey.

He gave a strong performance, buttoned and unbuttoned his shirts as the mood took him, and was well supported by his band (one of whom, apparently, has been with him since he split off from The Smiths). How he would lash the stage so much, as he did earlier on, with a cordless microphone I do not know - maybe he stopped, maybe I became less conscious, because the first two songs definitely felt like openers, and then everything had more presence (not least with the way that the third item had been assembled for film).

Some of Morrissey's songs I might well look out and read, because, unlike the fans mouthing or singing alone, I do not know much of what he does, and it helped when I could lip-read from him : one, rightly enough and unobjectionably, told us that we all have a date with an undertaker that we cannot break. In addition, I was given a strong sense that any notion of ego about Morrissey is really a front, a view with which my friend agreed, and that the songs fairly often are sung by a persona, which it would be the grossest of simplifications to identify directly with him :

I initially formed that view by seeing how he gave a little bow to all the people whom we saw him giving handshakes to at the beginning, which seemed out of genuine respect. Expectation had been
built up by fans saying how they felt, seeing the empty auditorium, and the titles, and then we had him on stage, bedding down the act, and seeming to have no fear of reaching out to the audience, or of validating those who made it onto the stage by extending a hand to them : of course, we were all touched by his reception of the nine-year-old boy to whom he had spoken earlier being beside him.

Old cynic that I sometimes am, Morrissey's generosity of spirit warmed me - of course, it could have been a stunt for the boy to get to the stage and for Morrissey to hold him up by one arm for a while, but I had warmed to him by then, and I quite rejected the account of this show that has it that 'that the fella can sing but does he really have to wrap himself in a cloak of his own misery ?'.

No cloak, no misery that I could see - I did not recognize the Morrissey of (from memory) these words, and maybe they should not be divorced from what follows :

As the twelve-ton truck
Kills the both of us


For me, reflecting on one's mortality, on wanting to be authentic in one's own terms, and on what, rather than separating us, we have in common seems perfectly fine territory for a song-writer.


End-notes

* Then again, this made for a very filmic treatment of the footage from the stage, by overlaying it with images (or parts of them) from the screened projection, and so offset the relative banality of the rest (i.e. of equating killing and eating with murder).

** Belatedly, because I lost the link, I am reciprocating the kind link by @Notorious_QRG to this posting, in which words from this paragraph about the shirts were quoted - apologies !

I am still unsure whether Morrissey is rightly thought of as having an indissoluble ego, or whether the expressions that he had on stage are capable of having been misconstrued. Certainly, when he gave the audience the microphone and asked if they wanted to say something (and, even, to do so 'if they were hard enough'), there must have been a fair chance that they were fans and were going to be complimentary, but, just possibly, they could have chanted a lyric about tetanus injections for astrologers...

*** This latter gesture, too, I had been prepared for by the trailer.


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)