Reviewed on Tuesday May 26 (photo by Daniel Boud)
Why do you come here? Why do you hang around? These are the questions that open Morrissey’s run of shows at the Sydney Opera House for Vivid LIVE. They’re posed in the form of the lyrics to ‘Suedehead’, but could well be a challenge from the famously evasive performer to his audience and back again.
The 56-year-old Mopechester icon is carrying a cough tonight (not to mention his recently reported treatment for more serious illness), but that’s not the reason An Evening With Morrissey underwhelms. It’s not just the setlist, either, though ‘Kiss Me A Lot’ and ‘I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris’ are hardly fair substitutes for ‘I Know It’s Over’ and ‘November Spawned A Monster’. Morrissey is no nostalgia act – he’s been out of The Smiths for more than 25 years now, and besides, nobody gets nostalgic for melancholy.
There’s something altogether more important missing from tonight’s show, and it’s cause for alarm for those fans who’d gladly see the Moz train roll on forever. The unpredictability, irony and sweaty-breast masculinity of Morrissey at his peak is nowhere to be seen. The penchant for vitriol remains, to an extent; his first target tonight is police brutality, and some alarmingly violent footage plays on the big screen as he spits through ‘Ganglord’. But then ‘Istanbul’ dawdles into view, and the impetus is gone.
A sympathetic ear might consider this Morrissey’s most experimental setlist yet, if only for the relative lack of Smiths or solo classics – except even he doesn’t seem convinced. At least there’s a jarring energy in the room when ‘Meat Is Murder’ plays over another series of blood-and-gore clips, this time of animals’ throats being slashed. For the finale, ‘Everyday Is Like Sunday’, Morrissey’s minders are even more attentive than they’ve been in the past, hurling themselves at a series of stage invaders (they only ever want a hug, anyway) and forcefully returning them to their place in the audience. Morrissey himself abhors violence, clearly, but it’s telling that the most engaging parts of this performance involve it in some form or another.
Otherwise, the sense of disappointment reigns. What should have been a triumphant occasion at an iconic venue in its brightest season instead feels flat. A few days earlier, at a book signing event in Sydney, one fan was heard telling Morrissey that this gig “will be great”. Moz corrected him: “It will be interesting.” When the final bow comes around, it’s barely even that.
