“The Pleasure, the privilege, is mine” were the first words the lucky Leeds audience heard from Morrissey on his first visit to the First Direct Arena on March 20th. Despite releasing new album ‘World Peace Is None of Your Business’ last year, this is Morrissey’s first UK tour since 2011, aside from a Manchester homecoming date in 2012, and a trip to London late last year.
Accompanied by a backdrop of the Queen giving us two fingers, Morrissey kicked the night off with Smiths classic ‘The Queen is Dead’, sending the crowd wild, before his first big solo hit ‘Suedehead’. At 55, with his recent health in mind (it came out last year that Morrissey had received cancer treatments, he also cancelled a gig a couple of weeks ago due to suffering with the flu), it was hard to believe not only how well he looked, but also how strong his voice was – I’d already deemed it a great gig and we were only 2 songs in!
The set list was new album heavy, though the crowd had no problem singing along to every word of Morrissey’s witty lyrics. For example, the lyric “she threw herself down, and her head split 3 ways” from morbid but jolly sounding track ‘Staircase at the University’ about a suicidal school girl throwing herself down a staircase was accompanied by Morrissey and the crowd holding up three fingers. The new tracks sounded fantastic and have classic Morrissey written all over them. Morrissey also held up two fingers during ‘Neal Cassady Drops Dead’, where he asks “victim or life’s adventurer, which of the 2 are you?” after singing about everybody having babies full of rabies, from what seems to be his obvious dislike of children.
The set list included a couple more Smiths tracks (‘What She Said’ and ‘Stop Me If You Think That You’ve Heard This One Before’) and various tracks from his solo career, including the beautiful ‘Trouble Loves Me’ and several tracks from ‘You Are The Quarry’, including ‘The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores’, which he introduced with a story regarding his trip to Harrogate that day, in which he described the school children he saw to be wearing anoraks with dead cats attached to the hood, making him think “aren’t humans nice?!” – perfect introduction.
It’s no secret that Morrissey is a vegetarian and a big animal rights supporter; as well as the venue being meat free for the night, and PETA being present at the gig handing out flyers, Morrissey was selling ‘Meat is Murder’ stencils at the merchandise stand, which he described would “enhance the city of Leeds” if people were to spray paint over them. He threw the stencil he was holding on stage behind him, as if it wasn’t worth much, after describing them to be 10p (they were actually £8!)
In true Morrissey style, he performed cult Smiths track ‘Meat is Murder’, using an animal cruelty video as a backdrop. It was an intense performance, the video was horrifying to the extent that people were taken out of the crowd by security. The aftermath of the gig seems to be that Morrissey has converted some fans to vegetarianism, and if he’s changed just one persons mind, then he’s happy. Morrissey also voiced his personal viewpoints before ‘I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris’, expressing his lack of interest in the upcoming elections, and how in his wildest dreams he can’t imagine why anyone would be, as “we’re all screwed”.
You never know what Morrissey is going to do next, but if that sadly was the last time he plays Leeds, it was one hell of a gig, with Morrissey saying how nice it was to be back on the Leeds side streets. He’s currently without a record label once again but with upcoming tour dates and an appearance on ‘Alan Carr’s Chatty Man’ this week; let’s hope this charming man isn’t going anywhere!
by Laura Dean
