Binyamina-Giv'at Ada - Zappa Amphi Shuni (July 2, 2023) post-show

Post your info and reviews related to this concert in the comments section below. Other links (photos, external reviews, etc.) related to this concert will also be compiled in this section as they are sent in.

Setlist:

Suedehead / Alma Matters / Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before / Irish Blood, English Heart / Our Frank / I Wish You Lonely / I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris / Knockabout World / Notre-Dame (live debut) / Jim Jim Falls / Sure Enough, The Telephone Rings / The Night Pop Dropped / My Hurling Days Are Done / Half A Person / Everyday Is Like Sunday / The Loop / Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want / Jack The Ripper // Sweet And Tender Hooligan

Setlist courtesy of Hagit Yaron FB.

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• Photo from @tomerabram / Instagram:
  
  
• Not every day is like Sunday when Morrissey’s in town - review by Liam Forberg (2 photos by Ariel Efron) - The Jerusalem Post. Link posted by goinghome (original post).
  
  
• Morrissey May Not Be Sending Flowers to Haaretz After This Review by Ben Shalev (5 photos) - Haaretz. Link posted by Thewlis (original post).
• Morrissey thrilled to be in ‘God’s country’ as he performs first of two shows by Jessica Steinberg - timesofisrael.com. Link posted by Famous when dead (original post).
  
  Excerpt:
  
  English singer Morrissey brought his crisp baritone and familiar, turmoil- filled lyrics to Amphi Shuni in the northern town of Binyamina Sunday night, and while all 1,350 seats of the restored Roman amphitheater were full to bursting with dedicated fans, Morrissey himself seemed a little, well, listless.
• Notre-Dame lyrics posted by This Charming Bowie.
  
  Link to video posted by federico (original post):
  
  

 

[Jett Rink]

After reading these posts, I feel like people are only now realizing that Morrissey's on a down hill slide but the fact is, he's been sinking for years now.

He went over the other side of his creative arc after 2004.

 

[Tom Blom]

No Andy Rourke tribute in the backdrops in Israel?

 

[BookishBoy]

Absolutely irreplaceable pieces of art, ancient and historical relics, and Christian artifacts that existed for thousands of years and which are now lost for all of eternity were destroyed. Treasures and religious pieces that were very literally priceless are gone, and that’s in addition to many hundreds of millions of euro in overall damage, and this was the most insightful comment you were able to come up with?

Ah well, agree to disagree! Nothing is truly irreplaceable on this earth, except perhaps Beyonce's astonishing song of the same name.

It does sound like you were very badly affected by the fire, though, so I'm sorry for your loss.

 

[Vesper Nocturne]

Ah well, agree to disagree! Nothing is truly irreplaceable on this earth, except perhaps Beyonce's astonishing song of the same name.

It does sound like you were very badly affected by the fire, though, so I'm sorry for your loss.

Triteness doesn’t mask the sheer stupidity of the original thing you typed. Or your follow up comment above.

 

[Mike Rourke]

Actually, what about Margaret on the Guillotine. Another pretty heavy handed political lyric.
Not much nuance in Meat is Murder either of course, but since I strongly agree with the sentiment I cannot not love that song.

Margaret on the Guillotine was very blatantly anti-Thatcher and her brand of right wing politics. The aesthetic of The Smiths and Morrissey was always very clearly anti-right wing. That's why his recent championing of right-wing politics has had such a devastating impact on his commercial fortunes. No-one really cares that Gary Barlow or Tony Hadley are right wing these days because they never accrued a fanbase on an anti-right wing platform. That's the nub of the issue.

 

[Crisstti]

Margaret on the Guillotine is a genuinely nasty song, you're right. The difference being that back then, 95% of his fans (I made this up, but you get the drift) and 92% of music journalists (ditto) hated Thatcher with the same passion that Morrissey did. So he was allowed to get away with it. (I love the song!)

It is absolutely his right, as an artist, to write songs that go against how many of his fans feel, and to kick against the prevailing media establishment. And it's our right, as consumers, to be disappointed. [I do also get the argument that if we're feeling that let down, like dear old Uncle Peter, then perhaps we should just...walk away.]

Well that's precisely my point. It's a double standard. Some people talking about how he's "on a down hill slide" or "has lost it" etc. Or people who talk as if he was this sweet boy in the 80's and now he's grumpy and hateful. In reality they just don't agree with some things he says now whereas they did before.

Also, he's never said anything near as bad as when he supported that terrorist attack in the 80's, that actually killed and injured several people. Yet people are horrified by stuff he says now!

 

[Mike Rourke]

Well that's precisely my point. It's a double standard. Some people talking about how he's "on a down hill slide" or "has lost it" etc. Or people who talk as if he was this sweet boy in the 80's and now he's grumpy and hateful. In reality they just don't agree with some things he says now whereas they did before.

Also, he's never said anything near as bad as when he supported that terrorist attack in the 80's, that actually killed and injured several people. Yet people are horrified by stuff he says now!

It's not that they disagree with 'some things he says'. It's that a huge chunk of the fanbase hated right wing politics, and they were drawn to the Smiths (and to him) partly because it was a group who represented the way they feel about a range of things including politics.
For the leader of that group to start actually endorsing right-wing politics in the most powerful way possible (i.e. a direct personal plea from his very own website, and the wearing of a right wing party's emblem at concerts and TV shows) was nothing short of sickening.
People voted with their feet.

 

[Moz Fan]

+1.

And btw what is up with people writing here that he's an alcoholic. That's completely baseless and borderline libelous.

You are right. If Morrissey were an alcoholic, he'd have already lost his beautiful voice. It's as simple as that.

 

[Crisstti]

It's not that they disagree with 'some things he says'. It's that a huge chunk of the fanbase hated right wing politics, and they were drawn to the Smiths (and to him) partly because it was a group who represented the way they feel about a range of things including politics.
For the leader of that group to start actually endorsing right-wing politics in the most powerful way possible (i.e. a direct personal plea from his very own website, and the wearing of a right wing party's emblem at concerts and TV shows) was nothing short of sickening.
People voted with their feet.

Isn't that essentially just a different way of saying the same thing? So, they feel strongly about it. It's still the same thing.

I know The Smiths played some concert in favor of some socialist group, but I'm not sure how that "the aesthetic of The Smiths and Morrissey was always very clearly anti-right wing"? In what way? Seemed to be mainly in some of Morrissey's comments?

BTW defining what's left and right wing isn't necessarily that easy. I doubt Morrissey even considered For Britain a right wing party.

 

[Crisstti]

they should have used their brains.

Yeah. A lot of people put too much importance in politics anyway, especially nowadays that's very encouraged from the media. Everything is very politicized.

I would say all of this has been very influenced by the way things have been presented in the (UK and to a lesser degree US) music media.

 

[Flash]

Interesting Drug promo - ‘there are some bad people on the right’

 

[Captain Caveman]

I wanted to write this comment before, but then by the same token i think to myself, “what is the point in engaging with people that don’t know how to ever think for themselves?” A lot of you have spent decades arguing (rightly) that not all Smiths or Morrissey songs are necessarily wholly autobiographical to the letter, even when sung in the first person. So that’s like, you can pick out nuance sometimes?

The problem with the song is the lack of nuance. The authorities who investigated the fire are wrong, armchair detective Morrissey is right! And no - we can be pretty confident that he is not singing 'in character' this time - Moz already outed himself as a conspiracy theorist in his interview with Sam:

sam:
Do you share the sorrow over Notre Dame?

M:
Yes, but let’s be realistic … it’s arson. Everybody knows that.

sam:
Why do you say that?

M:
You can judge it by the speed by which the corporate media rushed to call it an accident even though the fire had just started and no one was in any position to know anything. Brainwashing! It’s a bit like hearing the full reason behind a plane crash even though the plane has yet to hit the ocean.

 

[Thewlis]

Isn't that essentially just a different way of saying the same thing? So, they feel strongly about it. It's still the same thing.

I know The Smiths played some concert in favor of some socialist group, but I'm not sure how that "the aesthetic of The Smiths and Morrissey was always very clearly anti-right wing"? In what way? Seemed to be mainly in some of Morrissey's comments?

BTW defining what's left and right wing isn't necessarily that easy. I doubt Morrissey even considered For Britain a right wing party.

Morrissey started flirting with ‘right wing’-imagery as early as the late 80s/early 90s. It’s hardly anything new.

It keeps surprising me how little some (former) fans actually know about the history of an artist they supposedly like.

 

[bhops]

Well that's precisely my point. It's a double standard. Some people talking about how he's "on a down hill slide" or "has lost it" etc. Or people who talk as if he was this sweet boy in the 80's and now he's grumpy and hateful. In reality they just don't agree with some things he says now whereas they did before.

Also, he's never said anything near as bad as when he supported that terrorist attack in the 80's, that actually killed and injured several people. Yet people are horrified by stuff he says now!

Correct. Margaret Thatcher being behead equals OK and 'a breath of fresh air.' A song (albeit a badly written one) that alludes to terrorism being behind the fire of a cathedral equals hateful and racist.

 

[Mike Rourke]

Morrissey started flirting with ‘right wing’-imagery as early as the late 80s/early 90s. It’s hardly anything new.

It keeps surprising me how little some (former) fans actually know about the history of an artist they supposedly like.

He did indeed but it was very much flirting.
The line 'England for the English', for example, was in quotation marks as he was keen to point out.
Still, a lot of people felt pretty queasy about some of the stuff he'd said but it was usually sufficiently ambiguous for him to be given the benefit of the doubt.
So when he decided to wholeheartedly endorse a party that to many, was not only right wing but was actually far right, all of the previous ambiguity suddenly evaporated and the mass exodus began.

 

[bhops]

The problem with the song is the lack of nuance. The authorities who investigated the fire are wrong, armchair detective Morrissey is right! And no - we can be pretty confident that he is not singing 'in character' this time - Moz already outed himself as a conspiracy theorist in his interview with Sam:

sam:
Do you share the sorrow over Notre Dame?

M:
Yes, but let’s be realistic … it’s arson. Everybody knows that.

sam:
Why do you say that?

M:
You can judge it by the speed by which the corporate media rushed to call it an accident even though the fire had just started and no one was in any position to know anything. Brainwashing! It’s a bit like hearing the full reason behind a plane crash even though the plane has yet to hit the ocean.

Considering we now know unequivocally just how much our MSM and govts lie to us on the regular for reasons of expediency and manipulation it seems strange to me that you'd just blindly believe a govt/MSM narrative about anything.

Morrissey may be wrong, I happen to agree that arson was the most likely reason for the fire, we could both be wrong, but I don't see how being sceptical of the official story makes one a crackpot.

We get lied to constantly by the powers that be. Many such cases!

 

[Thewlis]

He did indeed but it was very much flirting.
The line 'England for the English', for example, was in quotation marks as he was keen to point out.
Still, a lot of people felt pretty queasy about some of the stuff he'd said but it was usually sufficiently ambiguous for him to be given the benefit of the doubt.
So when he decided to wholeheartedly endorse a party that to many, was not only right wing but was actually far right, all of the previous ambiguity suddenly evaporated and the mass exodus began.

I think you’re overreacting here. It was more a media thing, but the fans remained, as witnessed by the tours we’ve seen since.

Sure, he lost some casual fans maybe, but there have always been periods in the Morrissey timeline where there was more success followed by lesser success. Which is normal, too.

 

[Captain Caveman]

This is a somber song, about a shocking and deeply sombre, horrific event of mammoth historical and cultural depth of significance.

Good grief. It was an accidental fire in a lovely old building. Nothing more, nothing less.

I have to agree with you here. Three people were injured, but no one died. It was sad that a beautiful old building suffered fire damage, but this was hardly an earth-shattering tragedy.

What I find baffling is that if Morrissey wanted to write a song about an Islamic terrorist attack, he has plenty of choices of verifiable real world events he could talk about. Why go down the conspiracy theorist route? It's all a bit too QAnon/Pizzagate/crazy-old-man-yelling-in-the-street for me.

 

[Mardy_Cat]

Morrissey started flirting with ‘right wing’-imagery as early as the late 80s/early 90s. It’s hardly anything new.

It keeps surprising me how little some (former) fans actually know about the history of an artist they supposedly like.

Was that not partly due to M being drawn to rough trade culture though? (The hook-up scene, not the record label)

 

[Thewlis]

Was that not partly due to M being drawn to rough trade culture though? (The hook-up scene, not the record label)

Yes, the skinhead scene in particular which raised some eyebrows in the music press at the time, in combination with the Union Jack, and of course the three infamous songs plus the things he said.

If social media had existed in those days, he would have been crucified there and then. Now only the NME did a hit piece, which really was the start of all the racism rumours/accusations we are still stuck with.