A significant part of the problem is his continuing desire to play dozens of dates in one horse towns. He does it here too. It really is quite bizarre to see an artist who at one time could legitimately claim to be of major importance reduced to towns like Lincoln: both the real one, and the one in Nebraska.
Obviously that is to do with money more than anything else but I never thought I'd see the day Morrissey struggled to sell out any arena, but you don't need to do much Googling to find tickets still available in numerous venues. It is pretty depressing for fans, so for Morrissey himself it must be heartrending.
I have genuine admiration for those American fans who take days off work, travel six, seven, eight hours by covered wagon (you do still do that, yes?) to go to these odd little shows in odd little places. I'm not convinced I'd go to my local theatre to see him anymore and I can walk it in twenty minutes. The chances of a no-show, or a flounce off stage at some perceived slight is becoming too high to take the chance. If the band was better, if the singer was less fragile, if the new songs thrilled me, then maybe, but I'd have to think about it.
I've wondered for a while why he doesn't play fewer shows in larger cities where the tickets would sell and the stresses on his health would lessen. He has been burning himself out for years, trudging the wilderness, both literal and figurative, across three continents. It is time to stop, and concentrate on fewer shows in larger venues in cities with more than two sets of traffic lights.
I suspect he has run the numbers and worked out it is more profitable to do fifty shows a year at the arse end of the world than a night at the 02, one in Liverpool, Cardiff, Glasgow, and a Manchester homecoming once every couple of years.
If he isn't prepared to do that he should take a leaf out of Nick Cave's book. Cave vanishes for two years then returns with a more often than not stonking new album which he tours for two months, does some telly, and then, like a wisp of smoke, he has gone again.
Morrissey thinks he's a bigger and more important artist than Cave and he has priced himself out of the reach of nearly all sensible record companies and business partners over the last few years. The world has moved on and Morrissey stood still. He failed to embrace the internet until Harvest finally managed to get him to embrace new marketing techniques, and now there is a distinct possibility he has run out of things to flog and people to flog to. As a businessman he makes a fine singer.
Time has caught up with Morrissey and he simply isn't the man he used to be, but, in fairness, at fifty-five, who is?
