Jimmy loves Nannerpus

So enough fluffing about, we really have to just press on through and put this one to bed, I am starting to have the Morrissey shakes.  I can feel it creeping in.  So let’s just put our heads down, keep chatting to a minimum, and I promise we’ll have this gig reviewed and out of here in no time.  

Look, I'm not saying they shouldn't keep writing. It's just that I didn't hear anything last night that is going to make me jump out and get their album. And to be fair, the lead singer and the drummer seemed pretty good together. I think the guitarist was also more good than not, but the bass and keys were not really well utilized and I am not saying they have to be, but the songs just weren't there and so you have to wonder if you are hearing a sound that is alright, but nothing new or seemingly special, and you see this bass and keys and you're listening to the track and you are like, what are they playing, what is their function and you realize that you kinda can't make out those sections very often, well you see where I am going with this. You band is more than the sum of its parts. Otherwise you are either an eutorage or a nuisance. Take your pick, I'm not bothered either way, I just need you to step aside so I can pay attention.

For those of you too tired to read review here is the quick cliff note review:  [Moz]+[Kansas City + Boredom]=[Doing things you are going to regret all the next day, even when you are suppose to be on stage performing] . . .(click more for the full version)

Okay, so thank you for clicking more.  It’s nice to know your utter curiousity about how actually insane I really am trumps anything else that you should be doing, laundry, watching daily show clips you got sent at work today, clean out the cat box, clean out the spare room, you know, life stuff.  It strange, this medium.  On the one hand you are completely portable and free to be read everywhere, but that depends on you leaving for somewhere.  I always like to think of people reading my stories or emails at some faraway locale, perhaps sipping a cocktail on a sunny shoreline somewhere near Malibu, or maybe in a park, under the pin oaks, drinking a smoothie from the student union food court and lazily wasting all her spare laptop battery so that tonight when she needs to do her paper she will reach for her plug in her laptop bag only to discover she has inadvertently left it at her boyfriend’s dorm room and now has the unsavory choice of driving all the way back to campus to retrieve it or just using the parents computer downstairs.  Reluctantly, she goes into the den, ignoring the piles of paper from her father’s import/export business and the fishing tackle boxes after fishing tackle boxes of glass bead and charms that her mother insists is just a “hobby” when clearly she means “addiction.”  Yeah, I mean I guess I always pick these images in my brain and clearly this most likely is being read where it was written, either stuck at work or late at night with a cat on your lap.  Still, I think we can all give it up for the college smoothie bar.  Would going 6 hours of lecture without food until you got back home be possible without it?  Me thinks not.  Jamba, you may be just pure fructose and seeds, but I love you still.  And your crazy wheat grass cousin as well.

I know I shouldn't say it, but don't you think Will Ferrell would do an excellent Morrissey if he wanted to. I mean, if Morrissey rose to such heights that the boys at SNL felt he needed to be taken down a peg. Which, with the success of all music vapid with big tits is showing, we probably don't have to ever worry about that, but still. I think it would be funny. I do.

Anyway, so yes.  The show.  Well I can say that the opening act was fair.  They didn’t sound special, but they didn’t embarrass themselves.  I mean not even close, these guys are completely valid and by all means, keep on trucking.  But it did make me wonder what to think of the entire state of music critique when the Guardian gives the Courteeners the album of the year award.  Not that the album is bad, its not.  Really.  But I just didn’t find it, year best.  So then what does that mean?  Am I just not smart or sophisticated a listener?  Or is the Guardian, a newspaper with a readership of millions, really hiring just horribly out of touch reviewers?  I would think the latter is not likely.  Say what you will about the state of criticism in general, you have to at least give newspapers, at least the old timers like the Guardian a bit of a benefit of the doubt, since you know, they do derive a lot of reputation for being taste makers, so they should have some sense of what is good and what isn’t.  At least with broadstrokes.  But sadly, these are the 2 choices I am left with after a thoroughly unremarkable performance.  And sure, people will come and refute me and say they sounded good and poppy and the song were strong.  But I would say they were being fooled by the jangly brit pop sound and not the guts that make the songs run.  That stripped down, the songs just weren’t “there.”

And you know, it can just be as simple as adding a bass line, as opposed to whatever horror show the bassist was playing instead, or maybe just giving some more emotionally connecting songs, something to give the audience pause, to make them care.  And obviously there are more than one way to skin a cat and I don’t doubt a fair number of albums will be sold. I mean they look cute and their stuff is completely inoffensive.  But if they are to have any longevity in America, they are going to need to cut away from the pack and that starts and ends with lyrics.  Its why Morrissey has 5,000 screaming fans in the Midwest singing about Tories and Labour like they know what the fuck their talking about.  It doesn’t matter the subject, it’s about being sincere.  In a way that says you spend more time chasing the demons in your head than on your perfectly sculpted and moosed hair style that goes so smashing with your gray jumper.  Oh and seriously, get the bassist to get a stage personality.  He doesn’t do his playing any favors by hiding behind the keys.

But no matter, they were just the warm up act.  And as such were perfectly fine.  I mean, after the balloon dress girl last time, I was prepared for anything.  I guess if anything I was a bit sad at the blandness of the selection.  I always prefer the eccentric to the staid.  And while these boys had their moments, I forget them.  But they weren’t horrible.  Just boring.  Okay, so moving on, it was then standard Morrissey fare, a bunch of videos of things that give Morrissey hard ons.  Which is not a knock, I think any man who puts his money where his mouth is and writes a book on James Dean gets carte blanche to show pictures of whatever he wants.  And there is no denying his sense of style is pleasing to the eye.  I have always warmed to his sense of deadpan kitsch. 

So then he comes out and the show starts.  Okay, so first, the band are all dressed like navy sailors.  They have navy blue long sleeve shirts that have been rolled up, gray high waisted, flair bottomed navy pants, with black dress shoes.  No belts.  Which is when you start to appreciate the attention to detail that Morrissey puts into his performances.  I mean, you look at all the band, and the set up is perfectly symmetrical, 2 on stage right, the drum kit with huge ass gong, and 2 on stage left, with Morrissey and his mic cord tail whipping away in the center.  And the backdrop of a beefy sailor with his arms in the bicep flexing position.  It was perfectly set up to be just high enough that the top of Morrissey’s head just brushed underneath the armpit.  So when you see everybody except the lead guitarist, who happens to be a little heavier than the others, but not so much so that a belt was necessary.  So the first question you ask yourself is why does he get to wear a belt and none of the others?  Which could be for a variety of reasons, so I reasoned them all out, a tedious task I would not like to subject you to, but suffice to say came up with the most plausible explanation that the rigors of touring had slimmed him down since the start of the tour and his pants were no longer fitting and they didn’t have time to get them taken in on the road.  Or if that wasn’t it, it could just be that he is a little heavy and he probably was like, dude, the fat guy doesn’t go on stage without a belt.  And Morrissey was like, yeah, okay, you win.  But the other boys, you know they had to sign a contract before they came on tour.  And Article 1 was like, you boys best not be wearing anything on stage except the following.  A then it would have a detailed list of their costume.  And you know what.  It is a professional business and these guys showed they were pros.  I mean, the playing was tight, everyone sounded great, the bassist was absolutely stunning.  I mean he is seriously like a cuter Paul Bettany.  And you know, I’m not even gay, so the fact that I would fuck him should at least make you appreciate how much he rocked.  He gave as they say, “great stage.” 

Look, I'm not saying I wanted to see Morrissey in that position. I know it must have been awkward for the kid, I mean you expect to just hand over your cross stich pillow sham and then next thing your living the dream and blowing the Messiah, but hey, curve ball alert, you have to do it in front of 5,000 people. Thank god for the crop tool.

And Morrissey.  Oh Morrissey how thee has aged and yet never looking better.  He seems to have grown into his old age with a calmer, yet still quiet cantankerous demeanor.  Gone is the petty.  Not that there was ever much, but his youthful resistance has given way to calm defiance.  It’s still a joy for him, and that shines through in his playful strutting about during songs and the use of his mic cord to imitate at various times, his tail, his penis, his third arm, his imaginary thought bubble, and I think at one point he even managed to slap his own face all in a manner of a cool, calm entertainer that has been on a lot of stages.  The way he played to the audience was fully engaging to watch, even if I wasn’t taken by the force that he is enough to swoon.  I was the only one.  Everywhere around me, the shrill shrieks of the fan girl and for about 6 songs and the encore a legion of diehard fans found to the bloody death over the carcass of his dress shirt he tossed into the crowd.  We tried moving away from the surge, but as these things are never a perfect science, we somehow ended up right in front of it, so that every few beats there was an 8 person force of pressure aimed squarely in the middle of my shoulders.  I had nowhere to go since there were just people all around me, so I just stood there, bracing against my companion’s back and two total strangers next to me.  It was a kinda bonding moment, me, placing my hands hard on a stranger’s shoulder, stranger, turning around and assessing the situation and the look of sheer panic on my face, allows me to continue to use his shoulder and just pretend to ignore you.  Which is really all you can ask for in the moment, cause the music is playing and people are screaming, so an actual conversation is no good.  But anyway, I digress.  Where were we?  Oh yes, all of this combined for me in a moment of pure zen.  I stared straight ahead at this graying wildebeest of a man and his honest to god expression and it hit me.  Morrissey is the gay Tom Jones.  And while you may debate the style and substance of Tom Jones is nothing like Morrissey, the effect it has on the audience is the same.

So the setlist was good.  It hit all the sweet spots.  And the band was admirable.  And the great thing about the tour was that clearly they were packing heat for a big venue, as I am sure they are bound to do in some bigger city.  And since the Pageant is good sized, but not huge by any means, the light rig was this big fuck off rig that could light the god damn Hollywood Bowl and when you put that in an intimate venue like the Pageant you get such an amazing light display.  I really have to hand it to Morrissey for the great theater he provides.  It is a man who is really at the top of his game.  Even if you can’t get through the lyrics or the sometimes hard to appreciate song structure, his nasally voice, or even the type of fangirl and fanboy he attracts puts you off the bloke, you can’t deny his talent for expressing his vision through music and stage and image and it is an act that looks better now than at any time before.  I kinda get this sense that he is one or two hits away from going to pasture and being lauded to superstar status of even greater acclaim than before.  You get the sense that he is due for a breakout a la U2 that will allow him to enter into rock royalty.  He will get to be knighted, he gets the bbc2 string orchestra treatment for his album, he gets a few blow job reviews from the highest names in the critic business, and we all play there is a light that will never go out at his funeral.  But clearly there is no rush.  He is fine where he is, a man stuck between his youthful indulgences of his past and his sober-eyed heartbreaks of his future.

I think he looks better today than back 2 years ago. Or maybe I'm just really into old guys. You know, this is why you can't trust me. At least not around senior centers.

And so that is what I can tell you.  Overall it was delicious.  Except the shirt tearing part.  Which was a little annoying.  No, it was a lot annoying.  I mean it’s hard to enjoy anything with 8 people pounding on your back.  I said 8 people, that is more than sexy, that is crush your thorax frightening, get your minds out of the gutter.  It was made better by the fact no one got the stupid shirt.  The bouncers came and ripped it away once a bic lighter was gotten out to try and set the shirt on fire.  Because you know, keys aren’t in fashion anymore for makeshift cutting tools anymore.  Jackasses.

Oh and the best part of the night was when Morrissey was feeling all happy for a brief spell and looked out into the audience and saw his adoring fans trying to hand him a 45 single.  And you see Morrissey can’t make out the title since it was in plastic and he has a spotlight on his back which of course makes it hard to read through plastic.  And he bends down and picks it up and is reading it and saying thank you with his mouth at the same time and just then a magic marker pops up from the hands that are all clawing at him and Morrissey’s face just drops to the floor with annoyance that he is holding a record that is not a gift for him, but a request for an autograph.  Oh he is pissed.  As he should.  You go to ebay and it is jackasses selling his signature to fangirls and fanboys for stupid amounts of money and it is not like that money goes anywhere useful.  It’s not saving baby tigers.  It’s probably buying pizza and blow for the loser whose job it is to go to concerts and try and trick celebrities into giving up an autograph.

So Morrissey sees the pen, his face drops, he picks it out of the fan’s hand and reluctantly starts to sign, and the best part is that the person clearly got a new pen from the store so it would have plenty of ink, and clearly hadn’t tested it or opened the cap much because it was stuck on there really hard, and he couldn’t open it up at first.  And as he is struggling, you can tell his face start to turn and its like he is about to throw the whole thing back and be like, fuck you, you can’t even get me a pen that opens, and just as that face starts to get made, the pen opens.  So now he has to sign, but he was starting to make the choice not to, so clearly he is signing it under some duress at this point.  After he is done he hands the record back, caps the pen in a very dramatic fashion and throws it back in a very contemptuous way and really, from that moment on, we lost him.  I mean he is not going to be telling the next audience how amazing St. Louis was.  You just got that feeling like we went out with a girl too pretty for us and we blew it.  Not horribly, but you know, can we really blame him for choosing Chicago over us?  Or New York? Or Austin and every other city that kicks are ass in the cool quotient?  ::sigh::  I am starting to feel all sad now.  I think it’s time for a little Smiths.  They soothe the soul.  Night.