Arriving at Glasgow in the early afternoon, by train from Aberdeen, I make my way to my Airbnb room, which of course involves the usual uncertain wandering around residential streets, suitcase wheeled behind me, in search of the correct address. Hotels are so much easier to find.
I have a room in a guy’s flat, and he is there to greet me, asking me, in his broad Glaswegian accent, what brings me to Glasgow. I tell him I’ve come to see Morrissey tonight at the SSE Hydro Arena. He then asks me what my plans are for the afternoon. “Have a rest, have some food, then get in the queue.” I reply simply. He fetches a large map and proceeds to give me directions to the arena, which I vaguely absorb.
The arena is 15 minutes walk away. I arrive there at around 4pm and, as expected, find a small collection of people hanging around outside the doors. There are a few sleeping bags and large pieces of cardboard dotted around. No-one speaks. I ask the first person whose eye I can catch where The List is. “List” she repeats, and beckons me over to a spot where an A4 sized piece of paper is weighted down by a half-filled water bottle. I add my name at number 42, thank her, and look around, wondering what next. 
No-one seems to want to engage, and I hover about uncertainly, take a photo, and sit for a while playing with my phone. The atmosphere is distinctly less friendly than that in Aberdeen the previous night. There are several doors in a line next to each other.. A woman stands facing one of them, as if about to enter. I wonder if she’s really going to stand there like that for the 2 1/2 hours until it opens.
Finally, I find some people interested in socialising in the form of two bubbly ladies from Dundee. They’ve been to this arena before and found security unhelpful for queuing fans such as us, and they worry me with stories of lines being disregarded, and unmanageable crushes at the front. I tell them there was no crush at the front last night. “That was Aberdeen. This is Glasgow.” they respond.
A couple of people I had met in Aberdeen come to join the conversation. One of them is a young man who announces that he got a piece of Morrissey’s shirt last night. I make a comment about the fight, but he tells me he wasn’t in the fight, he found it on the floor afterwards, whereupon he opens his wallet and proudly presents a thumbnail sized piece of blue fabric. I am highly amused. “That could be from anywhere!” I tease. He takes it in good spirit and we laugh, and I tell him how odd it is, when you think about it, that people will fight over a shirt that Morrissey has only worn for 3 minutes. (he usually changes shirts for the encore).
By the time someone takes charge and starts announcing the List order, a large number of other people have arrived and started forming queues at the several doors. It is with some difficulty that we get people at the left-most door to move back so the people on The List can form a queue in numbered order. Being at number 42 I am now some distance back, and looking at the volume of other people lining up at the other doors causes me some anxiety. I ask repeatedly if we can be sure our door will be opened first, and am assured there is some sort of arrangement in place. The ladies from Dundee are a few places in front of me, and are now drinking gin from plastic tumblers.
Sure enough, at 6.30pm, our door, and only our door, opens, and the line I am in starts to move. My anxiety turns to excitement, but just as the ladies from Dundee reach the door, it closes abruptly. No more people will be let in from this line, we are told. In a couple of minutes, all the doors will be opened at once. We are dismayed, and a woman in front of me becomes quite upset. “I can’t see if I’m not at the front, because I’m short” she wails. We try to reassure her, and probably ourselves, that we can still get a good spot.
The doors open and the race is on. I make may way, flustered, through searches, ticket scans, more ticket checks, and finally enter the floor area to head for the nearest piece of free barrier I can see, only to find I am looking at a wall of speakers, and that the show will actually be taking place six miles to my right. I quickly change tack, and head for centre stage where I plant myself with some relief on second row. The lady who had shown me to The List earlier turns from her barrier spot and smiles acknowledgement at me, and the ladies from Dundee wave from a few places to my right. “I wanted barrier”, I call to them, “but never mind”. Two Barrier Regulars turn their heads and look at me disdainfully, so I babble on about how the door was closed before we had all been let in.
I’m thinking this is going to be a very long 2 1/2 hours, as once again, no-one seems much inclined to engage. However, I manage to instigate some conversation with two ladies on my left who tell me they are from California, and have come for the Glasgow and Dublin shows. I then roll my coat up into the shape of a cushion, and sit on it amongst the forest of legs, popping up every now and then like a Jack in a Box, for a change of scene.
An altercation breaks out just behind me. It seems a lady is attempting to reach the front, claiming she is “looking for her husband”, but the couple behind me are not having it. Security intervene, and she is lifted over the barrier in front of me, presumably to be returned to square one at the back of the crowd.
All the stress at doors and the back pain from waiting is of course forgotten as soon as Morrissey walks out onto the stage, and I savour every precious moment in such proximity to the great man that my central position affords me.
For the encore, Morrissey returns to the stage in a different shirt, as usual, and at the end of the song, standing directly in front of me, he tosses it into the crowd, not to his right or left, but straight ahead. It is, therefore, with some trepidation that I look up and see, directly above me and descending directly towards me, a shirt that Morrissey has worn for 3 minutes. I decide to fight for it.
I quickly reach up to make a grab for it, as of course do several other hands simultaneously, and I immediately find myself in a sort of circular tug of war. As I feel the strength of my hands gripping the material as tightly as I can, I am reminded of one of my hobbies, aerial silks, and reflect, with an inward smile, that I am probably capable of holding onto my section of the shirt more tightly, and for longer, than anyone else in the mix. I am aware of more hands now trying to reach in from behind me and get hold of a piece of the shirt, and I gather the end of my piece up into one hand to prevent this, whilst continuing to grip tightly with the other, feeling that as long as I can remain on my feet all will be well. I become aware that one of the ladies from California also has a hold, as do a couple of people that were on the barrier in front of me.
Security soon arrive with scissors and I am broken off into a sub-group, and we carry our portion over to the barrier where more scissors await, and at last I find the piece I am holding is released into my sole possession. I quickly pocket it and turn to depart the scene, only to find I am now blocked against the barrier by security trying to ward off more shirt hunters. Am I going to need an escort out of the building?
Eventually things disperse and I confirm with my sub-group that they too were successful, before offering and receiving high-fives. I am ecstatic with this unexpected windfall and babble excited nonsense to them at high speed as we head for the doors. I then spot the lady from California and ask her if she too got some shirt, but she says no, she decided to leave the scrum after someone attempted to gouge her eye from behind!!
Once outside I realise I am alone again, and stand looking in vain for someone I recognise that I might tag along with to the aftershow party, but I can see only crowds of strangers. Still on a high, and feeling that the acquisition of my first piece of Morrissey shirt definitely requires a celebratory drink, I decide I’m not ready to call it a night, and start heading along the river into town.
Only when I have been walking for 10 minutes do I allow myself to remove my new prized possession from my pocket for inspection. I have the lower half of a sleeve, and am not disappointed with the scent, famous amongst Morrissey fans the world over.
Predictably, by the time I arrive at the aftershow party the adrenaline rush that has sustained me for some time is now wearing off, and I realise that I am utterly exhausted. I sit with a drink, touching the shirt in my pocket, looking on at the proceedings as if watching TV.
It’s not long before I’m sitting in the back of a taxi, trying to communicate to the driver where I want to go, which proves tricky since I have only an address which I’m apparently pronouncing incorrectly. He drops me at what he thinks is the correct spot and drives off. After locating every possible number except 68, I refer to Google Maps on my phone and am informed that I am a 15 minute walk away, which at this stage of the night is akin to being told I need to climb Ben Nevis. Resisting the temptation to collapse into a hedge, I allow my phone to lead me through the silent streets in a semi-trance until I arrive once more at the correct address, and creep in quietly like a burglar, so as not to disturb my host.
Scotland, it has been a pleasure, but I love my bed.
Adventures of a middle-aged Morrissey fan 