May 6, 2004
ROCK REVIEW | MORRISSEY
The New York Times
A Singer Expecting the Worst, Never Being Disappointed
By KELEFA SANNEH
What did you expect? Morrissey has been asking and answering this question for more than two decades, chronicling a world of dashed hopes and peculiar dreams. In his lyrics there is nothing more honorable or more glamorous than foolish consistency, and his songs are full of defiant characters struggling to hold on to their illusions.
That's why listeners who pigeonhole this English singer as a merchant of misery are missing the point. His songs often evoke an odd but intense form of pleasure: the kind you get from fighting a noble but losing battle, from refusing to admit the obvious. That's why his heroes cherish their illusions: they know anticipation is better than the real thing.
And so when Morrissey, 44, announced he would play 10 concerts in the United States ?? five at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles and five at the Apollo Theater in Harlem ?? the anticipation began in earnest. All sold out in a matter of minutes, and on Tuesday night he had the second of his five Harlem performances. (He also plays tonight, tomorrow and Saturday.) To no one's surprise, Tuesday's concert was delightful and slightly disappointing.
He emerged wearing a gladiolus sprig over his crotch and purred, "Welcome to our Harlem home." Then the band tore into "First of the Gang to Die," from "You Are the Quarry" (Attack/Sanctuary/BMG), his new album. It ranks among the best songs he has written since the demise of his band, the Smiths.
"You have never been in love until you've seen the dawn rise behind the home for the blind," he sang, as his band buzzed along behind him. No one can sing a swooning ballad over a straight-ahead punk-inspired riff the way Morrissey can; few other singers would be brave (or foolish) enough to try.
Like most of Morrissey's best songs, "First of the Gang to Die" keeps shifting moods without ever really giving up its secrets. The sentimental opening gives way to a veiled threat: "We are pretty, petty thieves/And you are standing on our streets," he sang, tossing his head back. There was menace in the words, a hint of disdain in his voice.
Then the mood shifted again; he gave a criminal's eulogy. As the guitars peeled off triumphant chords, he sang, "You stole from the rich and the poor/And the not very rich and the very poor/And you stole our hearts away-a-ay-a-ay," sounding disabused but not disillusioned.
The rest of the concert couldn't quite match this glorious beginning. Morrissey is a brilliant singer and lyricist, but too many of the new songs meander without tunes that are strong enough to match the conceits. One has a brilliantly petulant title ?? "All the Lazy Dykes" ?? but not much more.
Still, even when suffering from what he called "the Harlem mumps" (his publicist called it "a little bit of a cold"), he is an extraordinary performer and never runs out of ways to tease his fans. When he railed against President Bush for "smiling and smiling" on TV, he got a big cheer, so he switched directions and chided the audience for not voting.
Morrissey resurrected some old songs, including "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" and "Hand in Glove," two Smiths classics, and "Irish Blood, English Heart," his rousing (but slightly bloodless) new single. And if the night seemed a bit tame, if some songs seemed more like elaborate (and quite unfunny) jokes, and if it sometimes seemed that this star had given up on casual listeners to focus on his hard-core fans ?? well, it was a Morrissey concert. What did you expect?
