Live Report: Morrissey at Vicar Street

Morrissey, clad classically in black slacks, black shirt and colourful tie stomps theatrically onto the stage at Vicar Street, the mammoth screen behind him emblazoned with an image of James Baldwin. The crowd erupts. Morrissey sings a line from Joe Dolan’s songbook: “Shut me off, cut me off, make me an island, I’m yours.” An epic start. Mullingar in the house. And then he goes straight into the enduring and iconic ‘How Soon Is Now?’ and the audience is already cresting as if it was the encore.

Later, when introducing ‘Speedway’, Morrissey asks “was anybody at the SFX forty years ago?” and more heads than were actually at that Smiths gig in November 1984, scream out that they were present and correct. ‘How Soon Is Now?’ is the sole song from that set to get an airing tonight. We know this because there is a 12” bootleg of that concert, entitled Blue that attests to it. And by the way, this is the first airing of ‘Speedway’ on this entire tour. And how do I know that? Because the indomitable Trinity, sitting to my left told me so and she has been to hundreds of Morrissey gigs, so I’m going to take her word for it.

Morrissey at Vicar Street. Credit: Cat Gundry-Beck

It appears the majority of the mob housed in Vicar Street, who have braved the enduring monsoon season are a stalwart Morrissey crew. Scribes write and may be right that due to controversial and frankly baffling comments by Morrissey, it is only steadfast fans that are sticking to their man. Perhaps. The hall is definitely more than earnest. Then again Morrissey punters have never been lukewarm.

‘How Soon Is Now?’ is followed by the quick one-two of ‘Suedehead’ and ‘Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before’. When Morrissey stops for breath, there are hecklers. I don’t catch what they say. Morrissey deflects them good-naturedly, exclaiming “As if! As if!” After merciless ‘Jim Jim Falls’, he deadpans, “forgive me I’m happy”. He dedicates ‘I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris’ to the wonderful Jane Birkin who died earlier in the day, Morrissey is firm that is the term to be used – not passed away or other such comforting euphemisms. It happens to us all, he informs us. True.

‘Knockabout World’ congratulates the listener on still being alive. It is followed by ‘Sure Enough, the Telephone Rings’, a jolly caper with Morrissey hilariously advising – “You must tell the kids they live in hell now.” He tells us, “That song is stuck up the chimney at Capitol Records, they won’t let me near it,” referring to the shelving of his latest record, Bonfire of Teenagers by the label. Hecklers cry out. Morrissey chides them and they cease. Nobody, most of all Morrissey, appears to be really bothered with being too contentious, at least not tonight.

Morrissey at Vicar Street. Credit: Cat Gundry-Beck

After The Smiths number Half Person and its blithe request – “do you have a vacancy for a back-scrubber?”, Morrissey points at an image of the cover of New York Dolls’ debut album and tells us “That’s the story of my life.” ‘My Hurling Days Are Done’, off 2020’s I Am Not a Dog on a Chain is a marvelous track, the match of any Morrissey stable. Its potent rumination on the bastard that is time is ferocious - “Time will send you an invoice/And you pay with your strength and your legs and your sight and your voice.” Conversely, Morrissey’s vocal remains a mighty power.

So too are his band, who he now introduces – Carmen Vandenberg and Jesse Tobias on guitars, Juan Galeano on bass, Camila Grey on keyboards and Brendan Buckley on drums. They play ‘Bonfire of Teenagers’, a song about the monstrous Manchester Arena bombing, which killed 22 innocent people and injured more than a thousand. The song includes a castigation of the singing of Oasis’ ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’, as an anthem of solace, which it became for many Mancunians in the aftermath of the bombing. Rather, Morrissey sings “I can assure you I will look back in anger ‘till the day I die.”

Morrissey at Vicar Street. Credit: Cat Gundry-Beck

The band doesn’t hang about, diving into ‘Everyday is Like Sunday’, the crowd deliriously yell out, “Come, Armageddon, Come!”, preferring the apocalypse to existing on silent, grey, eternal Sundays in decaying towns. Morrissey invites anyone who has something interesting to say to take the mic, someone passionately delivers – “we’re all in the gutter but some of us are looking at Morrissey,” to which he exclaims “I’m certainly not!”

‘Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want’ remains as fresh as a daisy. ‘Speedway’ is arguably the song of the night. The encore contains just the one song – ‘Irish Blood, English Heart’ which is more than enough, such is its intensity. We flood out, the rains have ceased.

Morrissey at Vicar Street. Credit: Cat Gundry-Beck