When I travelled to Canada to see Morrissey last year, a few people asked me if I thought he would ever do a show in the UK again. Each time, I reluctantly responded that I thought it was unlikely. But despite being able to say those words, I had never really come to terms with the full implication of their meaning. That Morrissey might never again appear in concert in his home country, in my home country, in front of the many thousands of UK fans, old and new, that still admire and love him so much, is bad enough, but the reasons for this….
One January morning, I have just arrived at my place of work in Leeds city centre when my phone pings an unusual ping (only Morrissey tweets make my phone ping in such a way). I instantly grab it to see a notification with the words “Morrissey UK and European tour dates”. I nearly drop it, but manage to tap on it, heart soaring, and in the couple of seconds it takes to load I’m conscious that I won’t be able to absorb the information fast enough….I just want the locations first…top of the list…. Leeds!! I let out a scream.
I generally keep myself to myself in the large open plan office in which I work. If people think I’m unsociable or unfriendly I really don’t care. But this morning, everyone in the office now knows that I am a Morrissey fan, and that Morrissey is coming to Leeds in March.
The next seven weeks are a battle to contain my excitement and think of anything other than the upcoming tour, and the Leeds show in particular. Before long, huge tour posters start appearing around town, and I can’t quite believe it. Morrissey is coming back to the UK, with a new album to promote, and he’s kicking off the tour in Leeds. It really does feel too good to be true….and perhaps it is….
As the day draws closer, so the spread of the coronavirus gathers pace, and with less than two weeks to go I am forced out of my euphoria into a hell of uncertainty. One night I’ll be in tears, convinced that the whole tour will be cancelled, the next night happily optimistic again, and so it goes on until I think I will go mad. The Paris and Cologne shows look particularly precarious, the situation changing rapidly, and each day bringing fresh news, always bad, but if just the Leeds show goes ahead I will die with a smile on my face.
Of all the Morrissey shows I’ve been to, I don’t think I’ve ever quite felt this level of immense excitement and anticipation. I’ve seen Morrissey in Leeds before, but this is different. This time it’s Morrissey returning to the UK, when for two years we’ve thought this might never happen again. In spite of everything, in spite of the Has-beens, Have-nots, the outraged and outrageous, Judge Bragg, the small-time never-heard-of record shop owners looking to get their name into a headline, the knee-jerk censorship of idiotic rail companies, the never ending drone of The Guardian, and the screams of the shallow minded flowchart thinkers as they all leap onto the band wagon of social media brainlessness. It’s been a sickening show, but not enough, it seems, to keep Morrissey away from his UK fans, The Leeds show will mark his return, and for me, this is a very big deal.
The night before the show is spent welcoming happy Morrissey fans from near and far to a small city centre bar. This is really going to happen. The next day I try to keep calm, baking and decorating a vegan cake to welcome the man himself to Leeds. A well connected friend promises to help me get the cake to a known crew member, and thus on to Morrissey, but when we arrive at the venue things somehow don’t go to plan, and I end up having to entrust it to the care of random venue staff, and I’m not convinced it ever reaches him.
At ten minutes before doors I am almost in tears already, the sheer enormity of the occasion threatening to overwhelm me at the last hurdle, but I pull myself together to attend to the task in hand – getting a good spot at the front. At most venues, when the doors open, the entry to the auditorium is naturally staggered as people are one at a time searched, and tickets scanned, before they are allowed to proceed. However, the staff at Leeds Arena for some reason think it’s a good idea to halt everyone’s progress with a cord at the top of the staircase leading down to the auditorium, wait for a crowd to build, then remove the cord and tell us not to run, an instruction as likely to be heeded as one to cut off our own feet. The result, of course, is a dangerous mob dash down the stairs and a brutal crush and rush of bodies towards barrier.
I worm my way along second row towards a friend who is amenable to me inching my way in next to her, and after an hour or so, by advancing a few millimetres at a time, I eventually find myself leaning on the desired metal rail and taking a deep breath as I gaze at the microphone stand before me. This is it.
When Morrissey appears, the roar in the arena is enough, the music a bonus. The sheer love and passion from the crowd says everything. Let they who rain abuse upon you say or write what they like. We love Morrissey as much as ever, and he will not be kept from us. Our hearts and lungs sing with him through a sparkling and brilliantly delivered set of old songs and new, songs that saved and save our lives. All the background noise is drowned out, silenced, this is what it’s all about, and to hell with everybody else. Morrissey’s return to the UK is triumphant indeed.
Adventures of a middle-aged Morrissey fan 