30 months is a long time. I last saw Morrissey at Wembley in 2020, just before live music shuts down. The pandemic rumbles on and on, with new variants and new problems with foreign travel, and for a while it all seems impossible. Two years pass by, but the long wait is finally rewarded with the announcement of a UK and Ireland tour – the best possible news! Ten shows within easy reach, a whole tour to follow, sending me into a happy frenzy of planning, preparation and excitement for the ensuing months.
Killarney had been announced a little earlier than the UK dates, and I had already pounced upon it hungrily, sought out accommodation, and researched travel and sightseeing options. When nine further dates even closer to home followed, I didn’t waver. I had waited long enough, and felt determined to be present at the first show of the tour.
The journey seems to take forever, and I land at the tiny Kerry airport, the day before the show, feeling that my trip to Vancouver, the furthest I’ve ever travelled for Morrissey, had been more straight forward. The bus into Killarney is delayed. I wait impatiently. If I ever get there… do you really think I will?
It is early evening by the time I am fumbling with the key box at my AirBnb. There is nobody home except a barking dog somewhere in the back of the house. I locate my room, dump my stuff, and head straight out again to a nearby bar to meet a Canadian friend I had met on the 2020 tour. We are shortly joined by a new American friend, and we make a happy trio with our pints and pizza, excited to be here at last.
I declare my intention to spend the next day sightseeing. I have no intention of queuing all day when there is so much I’d like to see and do. However, the next morning I awake to a message from my Canadian friend. She is already at the venue and has put her name on The List. She insists that I simply must come and queue. I decide to at least go and assess the situation. I haven’t yet seen the venue, something I always feel strangely compelled to do on arrival anywhere for a Morrissey show. My AirBnb host intercepts me on my way out, and whisks me to the venue in his car, giving various sightseeing tips on the way.
Once deposited outside the venue, I stand looking around, confused. Where is everyone? I was expecting to see a gathering of people, possibly with sleeping bags and cardboard mats. Maybe I’m at the wrong entrance. I prowl about outside the building with furrowed brow, before entering a wide doorway and proceeding furtively, until I find myself in a spacious, carpeted lobby area, with sofas and armchairs dotted about. An occupant of one of the sofas greets me, and I realise that these various furnishings are all occupied by Morrissey fans, friends from around the globe, and not looking at all like the dishevelled pavement squatters I would normally expect to find at a venue on the morning of a Morrissey show.
My brain catches up with the situation, and I promptly add my name to The List at number 16, a lofty place for me, before settling down on a sofa next to another Canadian friend. I am advised to ask at reception for a tour poster, and am duly presented with a pristine A3 sized sheet which I roll up carefully and secure with a hairband from my handbag. This is certainly a good start to the day.
I am now at the point of no return. The days sightseeing plans rapidly dissolve, and hopes of being amongst the first to enter the auditorium at 7pm tonight become paramount. If I’m going to do one all day queue, this is the one to do. We are indoors, with sofas, a bar and restaurant, a shop, toilets and WiFi, and we have plenty to talk about.
Morrissey’s nephew, Sam, appears with camera, wishing to record interviews with fans. A number of people volunteer to participate, others decline. I hesitate, knowing this is not my forte, but decide to take the risk, and I stand in front of the camera feeling very foolish, and babble some obvious statements about how excited I am to be at the first show of the tour, conveying zero insight or originality, or any purpose whatsoever. And now I know how Joan of Arc felt…..
I retreat into the restaurant with a friend, cringing, and shaking my head. Morrissey is playing over the speakers, which we quickly discover to be the handywork of the waiter, who hands us menus, assuring us of vegan options, and telling us he will be attending tonight’s show. Everything, everywhere is so……Morrissey!
I return from a quick walk around the very scenic grounds of a hotel across the road, thanks to a tip off I had received from my AirBnb host earlier, to hear familiar music blasting through the walls of the building. The soundcheck! As I pause to listen, an older lady asks me who this is, but I am barely able to respond, as just then, I hear Morrissey’s voice joining the music. It is a moment akin to that of a reunion with an old friend. At last, we are in the same place, at the same time, once again. I smile, and breath deeply, as if inhaling a delicious scent, before hurrying back into the lobby excitedly. Here, a small barrier has been placed in front of the arena doors, and a proportionately small group of us lean on it, listening to the music that can be heard clearly through the doors. It’s like our own mini rehearsal for tonight’s show.
The butterflies increase as the time for doors approaches. I dump my bag and coat in a friend’s hotel room next door, and return to find everyone lined up down a corridor behind a long stretch of cord, in number order, with an ever growing number of newcomers now tagging on behind. I locate my place and duck under the cord to claim it.
We now must stand behind this cord, huddled together like herded cattle, for another 90 minutes. There are hopes that the 30 of us on The List might be allowed to enter the arena early, and concerns about a second entrance somewhere on another side of the building, but time slowly passes, and we don’t move. Excited chatter turns to nerves and impatience. People duck in and out of the cordoned area to make their last toilet visits, and we watch like hawks any new activity from security staff, or potential breaches of the queue. I have made a new acquaintance with a friendly German lady who, clearly sharing my preshow anxiety, makes a welcome ally. 7pm arrives and still no movement, and I now feel physically sick. Just open the fucking doors!
At 7.15pm, finally, we start moving, alarmingly quickly, and I realise that we are being filtered into 2 or 3 points of scan and search. Flustered, I watch some people get past me in another line, but I am soon given the all clear to proceed, and in the absence of the usual objections from security, I start to run, blindly following the direction of those ahead of me, for what seems like a considerable stretch, round a corner, so that by the time the stage is in sight I am in full sprint, eyes darting about for the most achievable target, and I crash into the barrier as if my brakes have failed. My new German friend arrives a moment later, in a panic, and I am pleased that there is space for her on my left. We share a hug of relief. Is there any better place in the world to be right now than leaning on the barrier at the first show of a Morrissey tour? Months of anticipation, plus the best part of the last two days working my way towards this very spot, and now here I am at last! I am mightily pleased with myself!
At length, we collect ourselves sufficiently to take in our new surroundings, and notice that, unusually, the space between the barrier and the stage is filled at regular intervals by large speaker cabinets that rise to the same height as the stage, and we wonder if Morrissey will venture to step out onto these to shake hands with his audience.
He does. I am fortunately standing in front of one of these cabinets, and smile up at him happily when we shake hands early on during the show. My heart is already full, and when he returns to the same cabinet later in the show I duck down in an attempt to help the people behind me reach him, conscious of their desperate efforts, and knowing full well how this feels.
The show is literally a dream, in as much as I can remember very few details of it. There is something unreal about seeing Morrissey right there in front of me, after all this time. When it ends there is the usual chaotic buzz of activity, people hoping for a setlist or a piece of shirt, encounters with more old friends lately arrived, hugs and embraces, selfies and chatter. I eventually drift out of the auditorium as if carried along in the flow of a river, people appearing and disappearing like floating debris, with everything feeling a little out of control, as we swirl back through to the lobby, and losing sight of several friends, I cling to the two from the previous night. The three of us at length find ourselves washed ashore in an adjacent bar, where after some considerable efforts, we manage to acquire drinks and seats, and sit with tired but happy relief, sharing photos, and the excitement of our recent experience.
I retire early, planning an early start to catch up on that sightseeing that never happened, but too excited to sleep, I lie wide awake at 2am, wishing I had simply stayed in the bar.
The next day I walk to Ross Castle with my Canadian friend before we join an English friend to share a taxi to the airport. The taxi driver asks us if we enjoyed the show, and tells us with some authority that his colleague picked up ‘the man himself’ from his hotel just 10 minutes ago. “He might be on your flight” he says. We assure him that Morrissey will not be on a Ryanair flight, but he tells us he knows his colleague’s car, and if we see it at the airport “then we’ll know”.
We pull into the small airport carpark, the driver evidently spies the car in question, and immediately announces, “He’s on your flight guys, enjoy your flight, he’s on your flight!” He tells us there are no other flights today, and that there are no private charters. We are somewhat bemused. Could he be on our flight? He has to get to England somehow….But our English friend, seemingly more grounded in reality, shakes his head and declares this impossible, and we know he’s right.
Making our way through security we spot some members of the Morrissey crew ahead of us, and suspect this to be the cause of the confusion. Once seated in the small departure lounge we begin to spot band members also, but we try to maintain some calm decorum. However, when Alain Whyte appears we can no longer contain ourselves, and feeling this is an opportunity not to be missed, we pull out our tour posters and approach him sheepishly. He is happy to chat with us and sign our posters, but we are unable to catch the eye of the other band members that are with him, and we eventually thank him and shuffle back to our seats like two naughty school girls.
But when more fans start to arrive we observe them gathering signatures from everyone, and not to be outdone, we return with our posters to join the party. Gustavo admires my “Be kind to animals or I’ll kill you” t-shirt, which he tells me is one of his favourites, and is based on an actual quote from Morrissey, on stage during a US show, although the exact date and location he can’t recall.
We stand in a group chatting about the upcoming shows, amongst other things, and Alain asks us where exactly is Doncaster. He has clearly been in Los Angeles too long, a fact further evidenced by his reaction to the rain that drizzles down on us as we board the plane. He is sitting in the front seat ruffling his hair when I enter, and I remark to him that it’s the rain that flattens his hair. “The rain that flattens my hair” he repeats, reflectively.
Once seated, my Canadian friend messages me from a couple of rows back to say she had seen someone sneaking on at the back with their face covered. I make a pretence of visiting the toilets at the back of the plane, just to be sure……
Adventures of a middle-aged Morrissey fan 