After the impossible-to-ignore success of the new wave of ‘indie’ music in recent years, along with the media’s conveyor belt-like production of the weekly Next Big Thing, it was refreshing to watch one of the few still-active pioneers of the style : ex-Smiths frontman Morrissey, who recently headlined the well-known O2 Wireless Festival in London. Among the handful of Mancunian bands who crafted the ‘independent’ style and ethos of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, along the likes of The Buzzcocks and Joy Division, the influence of The Smiths can easily be traced in today’s ‘indie’ music: in dark, arpeggiated Radiohead guitar-work; in the sardonic wit of Arctic Monkeys lyrics; even in band line-ups, as ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr has worked with scene favourites Modest Mouse and The Cribs.

However, despite the resident mass of T-shirts suggesting the contrary, Morrissey’s former role fronting The Smiths wasn’t the only reason to attend. Since the band split in 1987 and his debut solo album Viva Hate was subsequently released in 1988, Morrissey has had a bustling career as a singer-songwriter. Twenty years on, Morrissey has just released his third (!) Greatest Hits album, and his ninth studio album, Years of Refusal, is due to be released in September. He has also recently been making the news after suing the NME for ostensibly misrepresenting him as a racist in a printed interview and article. In spite of the NME’s accusations, Morrissey has this year won an apology from Word magazine after a similar article was printed, and donated £75,000 to the Love Music Hate Racism campaign.

Defiantly, the set began with a video montage making light of this recent controversy: a scene from ‘60s police series The Untouchables was shown, among other clips, where the runner of a ‘numbers racket’ known as Morrissey is said to be “in real trouble” by a leading detective. After some more assorted footage, the Morrissey we came to see took the stage with his band, all of whom wearing Playboy T-shirts, corresponding to the opening 1989 hit ‘The Last of the Famous International Playboys’, which was given a remarkable reception. The first of many shirt-changes later and Morrissey was wearing an ‘American Idol’ logo across his chest, presumably a nod to the date, July 4^th; “the day America will truly celebrate independence will be in January, when they finally say goodbye to Bush,” he quipped. The ironic choice of apparel could also be in reference to his notoriously anti-‘industry’ attitude; he sarcastically congratulated Kylie Minogue on her OBE, and played the 2004 song ‘The World is Full of Crashing Bores’, featuring lines such as “Lock-jaw pop stars … so scared to show intelligence, it might smear their lovely career.”

Newer releases such as ‘The World is Full of Crashing Bores’, ‘Irish Blood, English Heart’ and the February single ‘That’s How People Grow Up’ were mixed in to great effect with Smiths tracks (‘Ask’, ‘Stretch Out and Wait’, and a set-closer which merged Meat is Murder album track ‘What She Said’ with 1985 B-side ‘Rubber Ring’), songs from Morrissey’s early career (‘Why Don’t You Find Out For Yourself’, ‘Sister, I’m a Poet’), and some new songs from the upcoming album (last month’s single ‘All You Need is Me’, ‘Mama Lay Softly on the Riverbed’ and ‘I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris’). The set highlight, however, was an entertaining, knowingly melodramatic and theatrical move where Morrissey lay collapsed on the stage, feigning death, as the outro to ‘Life is a Pigsty’ faded into silence, before he and his band entered into a roaring version of the 1984 Smiths fan-favourite ‘How Soon is Now?’.

Image Courtesy of www.itsmorrisseysworld.com, Universal Records

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