From future compadre to...long-time soulmate. 'Life Is A Pigsty' is a song that has had cause to mean more to me in the last twelve months than ever it had before. The musical rendition tonight is flawless and pristine in its pacing, power and lightly worn authority. It is only exceeded by the mastery of that human voice. This is the true beating existential heart of the set. Every yearning and impassioned line/query ~ 'And if you don't know THIS / Then WHAT do you know?' ~ finds truth creased across every inch of the Moz phizog - a mix of anger, fear and grief (my own private year in 3 little words). Again, tonight, I note this sense of the artist experiencing and feeling 'as if for the very first time'. How is this done? Sense Memory? Channeling? Witchcraft?! Someone once stated that the mark of the great actors was that they convinced you that what they were feeling on screen and stage was happening to them for the very first time, as you were there to bear witness, not on the 13th take, or the 33rd straight matinee. One can perhaps understand Morrissey's involved appreciation of certain kinds of actors, and his abiding fascination with the process of that artform. Does that imply falsity though? I don't believe so. The situation is false. The enviroment is 'unnatural' - be it a film set, a theatre stage, or any place where art is made. Yet truth is produced. It shines through the falsity of the location at moments such as these, here, tonight. It's why we're addicted. This queer alchemy that produces human truth to (most) people in this room. Truth that just can't be found elsewhere in life, no matter how hard I look. The magic and wonder of these moments is that I have my truth, dragged five thousand miles to this dark little spot. (No matter how far you run you can never escape your truth). Most others in this room have their own different truths, all separate, all distinct; and now they are coalesced around this one Manchester man, singing these words, over this music.'Can you please stop time? It hurts. 'Can you stop this pain? It helps. And then it's gone. And I'm weeping into my perspiration.'And I'm falling in love. Again. Yes.
Time for another new friend - a bright little pop gem 'The Bullfighter Dies' - which unites with the other newbies tonight in displaying a winning, vivid wit and a certain joie de vivre, that bodes very well for Morrissey's first LP "since 1927." This feels like work coming from a different mindset and delivered with a fresh sense of Attack.
The intro to 'I Have Forgiven Jesus' is greeted with rapture which amuses Moz no end for some strange reasom. Within 4 minutes he goes from chuckles to challenging Jesus - pretty neat trick. As I'm singing along, badly, I suddenly have a flashback to a small fat child self-consciously singing along in church, praying to God that nobody can hear me (except Her), and I think this could be my Moz hymn.
Another treasureable moment comes at the climax to this song as Morrissey asks 'why put me in self-deprecating bones and skin?...' He is firmly planted atop one of his vocal monitors, towering above the front few rows, head thrown heavenwards, to the sound of stifled, stifling screams of all and sundry. He blindly paws himself all over his body as he reprises the heavenly demand. With every set of eyes in the place fixed upon him I can only imagine Jesus himself shrugging ~ 'What giveth Steven?'
There is another chuckle from Moz as the band begin 'Yes, I am Blind' to a huge roar of Californian love. You would think it was a lead single off his biggest selling album ever, rather than a 25 year old b-side. What follows is a flawless, full-throated sing-a-long to every syllable. You can hear the shared passion acroos all 25 of those years, and the bittersweet memories of import-only, funny little singles, Dick Blade KROQ first plays and general back-in-the-day West Coast chaos. The little lamb climax is delivered by Morrissey tonight with the true empathetic and fevered passion that I always felt was only ever hinted at by the Langer & Winstanley version of the song.
There is no time for voices to rest as 'Everyday Is Like Sunday' is up next, and is as perfect as ever. It may be the effect of this night working its magic on me, but at this exact moment I can't in all my years actually recalll ever having been present at a duff live version of this song. At the middle-8 line of 'And the strange dust lands on your hands / And on your FACE', Morrissey, being Morrissey begins wiping his face furiously and repeatedly, right through to the end of his vocal. Both hands, all over, compulsively. As the music comes to a close Morrissey stands, his back to the crowd, to the side of Matt's drum kit. He then moves forwards, but still with his back to the crowd, towards the front of the stage. He stretches his hand out 'behind' him, grasping for something. A couple of flails fail, and then he's got it. The microphone stand is grasped. Safe. Anchored once more.
Round about this time the noise around me becomes increasingly bothersome. A couple of women appear right next to me, seemingly from the bowels of some drunk-tank hell. Their entire focus seems to be on how many beers and shots they can consume, with only slightly less effort being expended on just how loud their screeching laughter can be in response to every single little thing either of them say to each other (which they surely can't hear anyway?!)
Needless to say this slightly punctures the intended effect of 'Meat Is Murder'. This time out the footage ('From Farm to Fridge') is even more disturbing and brutal - I truly could not face it at some points tonight and had to turn away. Also the video resolution now renders the images more clearly - on previous tours alot of the atrocities were, literally, hard to see; this time there was no mistaking the horrors.
As the harridan din persists next to me, I have to make a conscious and deliberate effort to focus on the tender beauty of 'Trouble Loves Me'. In a way it does serve to throw the song's sublimity into greater focus and one realies just how fully Art can soar above the scum of this world. Even when it is sung by self-avowed "human filth"!
As with so many of the other songs tonight there is a sense of (I hate to use the word, as it's so muso..) 'tightness' about the band. But there is just no denying the air of concerted authority, of ownership and reolute power; a shared unity of impassioned endeavour that matches the vocals. Is this as a result of the bond of the residential recording process? Or a more lengthy rehearsal process than normal? The sunshine? I remain clueless, so why worry.
I do realise that I say this every time out, but Morrissey's voice at this point is simply untouchable. It is inconceivable to think now of his state of health just over one year ago. His mastery of not just his vocal technique - his own unique technique - but also his control of the connection between it and his emotions, memories and senses is unparallelled. Even these words I'm using make it sound clinical and rehearsed, like it's a 'process'. It isn't. It is a wonder. And in common with most wonders 'it is best not wondered at'
In particular his voice on the 3 new songs sounded beautiful ~ full of fresh life, strength and vitality.
As with many songs tonight, the slight and subtle shift in arrangements in conjunction with the bands' easy strength make 'Trouble Loves Me' a stunner. Gustavo's piano intro was so tenderly done that it placed you in the perfect emotional space for the song to come (despite my laughing ladies of liquor). The half-light English frowning climax was done with a musical precision and power that, allied with the vocal and physical mercury genius of Morrissey, produces the very finest version I've yet to experience in concert.
Meanwhile. We come to 'First of the Gang to Die', which upon first hearing (of this version), I would have to file in the category marked 'brave and noble try...but no'. The band have basically tried to put a Latin spin on it, in keeping with the lyric's mise-en-scène, but to these ears it just didn't fit. It was definitely interesting, but the lack of drummage from Matt meant that I never felt that full incandescent electric joy that the song possessed back in '04, '06 and onwards. It was fitting that they rested the song for a time, as it was becoming an easy and overplayed choice in the set, but I just didn't see this version as worthy of reselection in the line-up. What it gained in local colour it lost in passion and exuberance. It could develop into a spectacular amalgam of the two styles by tour's end though (with Cliff shaking his maracas...)
I knew, as soon as those haunted strains of static faded into life, that 'I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday' was gonna soar. Firm in the knowledge that Morrissey was in resolute control of his voice, he and his band of MVPs knocked this one clean out of the park. Another exemplary musical touch, typical of the nights approach, was Boz doing his Bowie-sax-climax. A nod, and a tip of the wink.
A double-dose of 'Arsenal' as 'National Front Disco' boots its way off the shiny new re-master disc and out into violent, vibrant living glory. A moment-by-moment reminder that these songs are not just 'legacy product' but flesh-and-blood stabs of Art, straight from the heart, living and breathing as long as he does.
Thus the main set concludes with the band thrashing away for all that they're worth. Now, I had managed to avoid most prior knowledge of the San José set list (deliberately so, not just cos my wi-fi was wonky) other than a handful of songs - the opener, the 3 debuts, and the encore opener. Moz returns to the stage still in his blazer (he must be melting up there. I am sheathed in darkness and a gold glitter top and yet I'm still frying)