After spending the day looking at the clock, I leave work at the usual time, as if it’s just another Friday. But this Friday, instead of heading home, I drive directly to Newcastle, arriving at the arena at around 5.30pm.
I join the not overly long queue that has already formed, and chat to a young lady from Norwich, before settling down on a concrete step to eat my sandwiches, thinking I have an hour until doors. However, the queue starts to move unexpectedly, and I jump up and am told doors are at 6pm tonight.
I rummage for my ticket and reach a search point where a lady asks to look in the plastic bag that contains my food and water, which I normally ditch before this point. “It’s just some sandwiches and water” I tell her pleadlingley, knowing this is pointless. “Does it contain any meat?” she asks. It doesn’t. “Well, you’re not allowed to take food in.” she concludes. (Well, why did you ask me if it contained meat then?!)
I become aware that during this exchange people have been streaming past me, and kicking myself for making such a rookie error, I throw my bag in a bin, and hurry forwards.
There are now several queues at several doors, and as a new arrival I don’t know what, if any, arrangements might be in place, but I spot a guy at the front of one of them, who I had seen on the barrier in Glasgow & Dublin, and who I know is in the habit of queueing all day. Thinking he’s probably a safe bet, I join the same queue as him.
The doors now open all at once (bad), and people start entering from all doors except ours (very bad). Frustrated, but thinking it must be a momentary glitch, I wait, hopping from one foot to the other as I watch dozens of people enter the venue whilst our queue remains inexplicably stationary, and people in it start shouting in anger and frustration.
Eventually I join some shoving and pushing into the neighbouring queue, and when I get near the front, try to hop back to my original queue, to be told the scanner on this door is not working.
When I eventually gain entry to the building I run across the lobby to join what proves to be another queue, along a corridor. Doors may have been at 6pm, but entry to the auditorium floor is at the usual time of 6.30pm, and we are stationary again for another half hour.
Several of us from the unlucky queue are now venting our annoyance, and I see behind me the familiar guy from the previous shows’ barriers, tell him how sorry I am, since I know he will have been here all day, and invite him to move in front of me. This doesn’t exactly fill him with delight, since it advances him all of 4 places. However, after we have had a little more time to assess the situation, a few of us encourage him to go and join his equally hardy friends at the front of the queue, since there is room to easily walk along one side of the corridor without pushing. He goes, and doesn’t return, which we take as a good sign, and when I enter the auditorium I see him in his rightful place on the centre barrier with his usual companion. I stand behind them, pleased and rather surprised that I have achieved this position once more, despite my relatively late arrival, and my less than smooth entry, which is starting to feel like a prerequisite.
I now have next to me a friendly young man from Durham who is studying child development. He even joins me in sitting on the floor (no-one except me ever sits on the floor), and we discuss children and my experiences as a mother. Another lady joins us, complaining of sore feet, and we sit chatting in a circle for a while, as if having a picnic.
The young man and his friend express concern about the crowd a few times. His friend gets nervous in crowds. “It’s going to go mental when Morrissey comes on stage”, he thinks. I tell them this is my fourth time being at the front on this tour, and there hasn’t been any crush, it’s all been quite civilised. They seem unconvinced. “It’s going to go mental”, they keep saying.
Morrissey comes on stage and the crowd go mental. We are thrust forward into the backs of the people on the barrier. I am now very glad that I always make a point of getting to know the people around me before the show. Crowds feel a lot less hostile when you feel you have allies around you. Various arms begin to appear regularly from behind, seemingly in a bid to slice a gap between my Durham friend and I, and oust us from our second row position. With a sidelong look of mutual understanding, we quickly respond by welding our shoulders together, and remain firm despite the jousting and pushing from all angles. “Just disregard everything I said” I yell to him. “Welcome to the North” he yells back.
A young lady half my height and half my age is wedged against my other arm. “Are you OK?” I shout down to her. She smiles and nods. Not wishing to spend the entire show pressed up against someone’s back, I adjust my foot position and lean back on the crowd behind me with my full weight. It’s actually quite comfortable.
Between songs the crowd break out into the loudest and most persistent Morrissey chants of the tour so far. The UK have the best Morrissey chant.
“He’d better do Speedway” a man’s voice repeats behind me several times. “If he doesn’t do Speedway….”.
He doesn’t do Speedway. The show ends and when Morrissey’s shirt flies into the crowd we all instinctively reach and lean towards it, even though it’s nowhere near, causing us to collapse on top of each other like dominoes, and we find ourselves on the floor in a heap. A large man helps me up and asks if I’m OK. I ask the young lady near me if she’s OK. I have no idea what happened to my young ally from Durham.
Side stepping around the shirt fight, I exit the building and head to the car park just behind, where I encounter a small group of people staring at an upstairs window. They claim they have just seen Morrissey passing this window, shirtless, and now claim they can see him again. I squint up, but can’t make anything out, and telling them I have seen enough of him for one night, which isn’t true of course, since I can never see enough of him, I continue to my car.
I set Google Maps going, and place my phone on the front passenger seat next to me, wanting assistance in getting out of Newcastle and onto the A1(M), the main route to Leeds.
However, shortly after starting on this route, I am instructed to take the next exit. The A1(M) is closed overnight for roadworks. Unconcerned initially, I blindly follow directions onto an unknown alternative route, but shortly remembering that my phone battery is running dangerously low, I begin to have visions of being stranded, phoneless, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, with no idea where I am. Unable as yet to come up with a plan to avoid this situation, I plunge onwards into the darkness.
“Continue on A19 for 50 miles”, the voice tells me. I make a mental note of the milometer and turn my phone off, turning it on again after 45 miles, after which it lasts as far as Wetherby, where the roads are now familiar to me.
I arrive safely home just after midnight where I join my sleeping husband. Tomorrow will be an even better day. Morrissey is coming to Leeds.
Adventures of a middle-aged Morrissey fan 