Photos: Brunky[/caption]

Jeremy Chunn last saw Morrisey live in London, back in 1986. A quarter of a century on, his respect for the muso has only grown.

Morrissey @ The Enmore Theatre

Friday, December 21

Fresh from a barbershop, with chunky gold rings and necklace, who is this man who reaches into his unbuttoned shirt to rub his chest, over and over, as he frowns and his thick eyebrows go up and down? Oh, you’ve been doing this so long, Morrissey. Lampooned and lacerated, remember? How could you forget. Skewered by the politically correct. But isn’t it so beautiful when you get to skewer them back?

Never forget who you are.

From seat B34 of the Enmore, leaning forwards with my elbows on my knees, the tight focus of my binoculars removes all extraneous crap. Should I wipe away these ridiculous tears? Sure, it’s easy to step back and see Morrissey from an outsider’s perspective. A couple of unfamiliar songs and he starts to look slightly out-of-place. Band leaders don’t take the stage in big-size jeans you’d normally see on some guy out buying shirts with his wife. But the set delivers so many surprises, and emotion surges to the surface, manifested in wet cheeks on a 48-year-old man with two kids, a divorce in the can and an active profile on RSVP. Morrissey is in your blood or he is not. It is a relationship with an artist unlike any other I have had.

But does he care about us?

The binoculars help. And it is also made better that, for the first time I have seen Morrissey since two Smiths shows in London in 1986, I am alone and the seats either side are empty (except when a beer-smelling woman took B35 for a few songs to fuck around with her iphone, like the trio in front of me who checked emails, recorded video, checked emails, recorded video…). But never mind the audience; the binoculars have narrowed the cone of vision so that they do not exist. Answer the question: Does Morrissey care about us?

From the moment the doors open at 7pm until the last of us will have turned back out onto the street nearer 11pm Morrissey has directed our experience, with recorded opera then a cinema-sized screen showing the strangely powerful artists who have spoken to him from the cathode tube of popular music through his childhood and youth. I won’t name names, other than to say Johnny Thunders will never be replaced as a guitarist.

Then the music stops, the screen drops to the floor, the crowd noise fills every the corner, and Morrissey walks onto the stage.

The five band members follow, in pressed pale blue shirts and identical deep royal blue trousers and polished black leather shoes. They form a line of six, and take a slow-motion bow.

The 90-minute show includes some strange peaks. During “Meat is Murder,” the reduced range of vision afforded by the binoculars censored the backdrop footage of animals writhing and snorting flames of snot as abattoir workers earned a hard wage on them. It was a song I least expected to hear. Towards the end of the song, Morrissey flicks up his palm and shrugs like a waiter taking a vicious complaint. Protein is popular. He knows he can’t stop us with our shopping trolleys. But should you ever stop trying? Or look at it this way: he knows they all sneer and assume he’s not at all qualified to comment on our world, and yet he can, again and again, show to us how our relationships come undone. But he’s never lashing, never didactic.

There was a line in there I’d almost forgotten, from another most unexpected Smiths song, which meant much to me 25 years ago but repeated on Friday night spoke a blunt but restorative truth about a relationship only ended weeks before. Never forget who you are, after all. Then the eyebrows are in action again, the mic stand tossed aside. No, he thinks, I may never produce a manuscript of, you know, great poetry, but they love what I do, and I know that I love them.

Another peak: he rips, violently tears, from his torso all of his shirt and tosses it into the crowd. Barrel-chested and shining with sweat, look at Morrissey! Oh good God! But this is what we want, yes, as we roar, excited and thrilled. Look at this outrageous man, at what he did to his shirt!

Another peak shows the corners of his mouth turned down, a grim expression, the focus on a distant, distant point … as the crowd takes up the chorus. The music moves you too, Morrissey. Your face shows the same mystified shock as mine. And so many people only know you for the Smiths? What the hell is that about? Look at you now, damn it. Stronger and stronger.

Jeremy Chunn

