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Grade: B+
Summary: This disk is a tasty appetizer to tide you over until you can dive into the actual experience that is a Morrissey live show. |
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By now, anyone who has their finger on the pulse of music knows that Morrissey deftly resurrected himself last year with the release of the brilliant You are the Quarry. After seven years devoid of Moz that was preceded by two tasteless albums, the king of Manchester stormed back onto the scene taking a giant eraser to the past 10 years. Perhaps the only thing more exciting than breathing in this salient work was discovering that he would be embarking on his first extensive U.S. tour since the mid 90s, headlining Lollapalooza.
The leaking elation was short lived as we discovered weeks later that Lollapalooza had folded on the back of weak ticket sales. It would be a month before Morrissey would roll out a tour schedule to sop up our disappointment. That Atlanta evening in October, when he made the Tabernacle his home, would rank as one of the best shows I have ever experienced, and I have hundreds to draw from.
Usually, I'm not a big fan of live discs. It's one thing if it was a show that you attended. Then you can effectively plug in each of your memories from that night into each feverish track. Otherwise, it's a live show minus the live show. You don't have that feeling of your nerves dangling as the performer stands a mere 40 feet away. Watching them cycle through their facial expressions, surveying their body gestures, spying as they feed off the sweaty energy pulsing from the crowd, allowing them to elevate the music to another level.
Then you have the crowd, which is a spectacle in and of itself. I'd say half were homosexual and the rest were perched just to the left of normal. The fine art of people watching was definitely in full swing.
This set was drawn from a variety of sold out dates that closed out his 2004 tour in the UK (London, Glasgow, Birmingham, Brighton and Dublin). It is really a strong collection of songs. It favors You Are the Quarry of course, but it also gives us several classic Smiths' barn burners within ("How Soon as Now?", "Bigmouth Strikes Again", "There is a Light that Never Goes Out") as well as a healthy sample of B-sides and unreleased tracks from the Quarry era. The B-sides are certainly an interesting spectacle, but largely prove to be the weak links.
Article comments
1 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Nice one Mark. I have this and the DVD ordered, should be here tomorow hopefully. Channel 4 in the UK showed an hour of the DVD on Friday night. It was sublime.
2 - Mark Runyon
Thanks. I've been debating whether or not to go ahead and take the plunge to buy the DVD as well. Throwing around comments like its sublime means it just moved way up on my list of priorities.
3 - DAMO D
Redonodo Beach and Friday Mourning are both brilliant songs on the live cd!
4 - Mark Runyon
Granted they are performed well. There is no letup in quality. I'm saying these songs are lackluster. Are you truly telling me that "Redonodo Beach" and "Friday Mourning" can hold there own against great Quarry tracks like "First of the Gang to Die" and "Irish Blood English Heart"? Every album by every artist has things that fall to the cutting room floor. I'm suggesting he should have left these there.
5 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
woohoo! the cd and dvd arrived today. listening to the album now. fantastic!
6 - Tom Johnson
Morissey is now considered prog-rock? Man, I can't wait to hear him tackle Tarkus!
7 - Matt
The DVD is exceedingly better than the CD. I just think his live act works a lot better if you can see him perform. This may not be the case with all performers, but with MOz, I think its necessary.
8 - Tom Johnson
I am apparently the only one to question the "progressive rock" label being given to Morrissey here. Morrissey is about as far from prog as you can get and still be in the rock genre. I would love to know what qualifies Morrissey to be ranked among ELP, Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, and the million other prog acts. Everything I've heard of his and the Smiths was pure British pop-rock and nothing more.
9 - Eric Olsen
I would agree with Tom that as the term is used today, Morrissey is not "progressive rock." Perhaps Mark can tell us why he made the designation. He might be using it as synonymous with "alternative rock"
10 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
tom, i found it odd too, but forgot about it by the time it came to commenting. I just presumed it was maybe a glitch in iTunes or whatever.
11 - Mark Runyon
Tom you seem pretty concerned about this progressive rock thing. I guess it all comes down to how you define progressive rock versus how I define it. I see it as rock that is off the mainstream, takes chances and cuts new paths. That's not alternative rock which is the mainstream. Of course, Morrissey gets alt-rock play so he could be qualified as that as well. If it's that big a deal, I can always remove it. Just remember that all categorization of music is a subjective experience. Great music shouldn't have to make a case over what category it falls in.
12 - Tom Johnson
I am very concerned about this progressive rock thing. Gotta preserve ranks, man!
Subjective as categorization may be, Morrissey is decidedly not progressive rock. I would think most Smiths/Moz fans would find that a terrible slight and indeed quite a joke to lump him in with the excessive and ridiculous nature of prog, unless he's started taking to wearing capes and writing multi-part suites with multiple time-signatures and extended instrumental sections. Wait, he's not wearing a cape now, right?
13 - Mark Runyon
Hold the phones. Capes are the qualifying feature? Morrissey is a prog artist after all.
14 - Eric Olsen
Mark, very fine review, much appreciated, by the way. The "progressive rock" thing is only an issue because the term does have a pretty specific set of parameters as now used. I am old enough to remember a time when "progressive rock" was used as loosely as you used it, but now it is an actual genre, which nowadays mght be closer to "symphonic rock" or some such thing
15 - Mark Runyon
Hmm...I guess it is time for a new genre of music then. We need something that falls into that gap between indie rock and alternative rock -- the new alternative if you will. Maybe we just need to dump all of the acts currently thought of as alternative into modern rock then start over on a case by case basis. Actually I'd be just as happy if genres were ditched entirely. Too many people like me trying to pin innovative artists down into a mold.
16 - Mark Saleski
i've even heard The Cure described as prog, so there's been a sort of coopting of that word.
still, i'd pay money to hear Morrisey sing "We Have Heaven".
17 - Temple Stark
mod-rock
Progressive rock to me means 70s theatre rock.
Anyway,
I'm sticking my two Drachma here to let you know I posted your review of this to the Advance.net Web sites.
The review can be found at a few different places on the Advance network around the country, but here's one of them.
Thank you
- Temple Stark