It’s easy – if also unsympathetic and probably inaccurate – to view the iconic Englishman called Morrissey as the instigator of his own unhappiness. That it isn’t any government or vicious meat eaters or his former mates in the Smiths or this cruel world in general that has made him so poetically miserable, but rather his own perpetually aggrieved disposition that sometimes leads to misfortune.
Not that there was anything calamitous about his appearance Saturday night at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, another resolutely strong performance loaded with rarities and new gems, and bolstered just this once by a warmly received set from Tom Jones, wisely tailored to appeal to the purists in Moz’s camp.
Other than an enormous base of like-minded fans, of course, who turned out in droves for Saturday’s sold-out show, just as they did in Santa Ana, where some absurdly devoted acolytes camped out two days ahead to secure prime spots.
That patience didn’t go unrewarded: At both locations, Morrissey rousingly delivered similar 20-song sets, his voice robust as he settles into his 50s, his already impassioned demeanor noticeably reinvigorated as he readies for the July release of his next album, World Peace Is None of Your Business. He offered three previews from that, including the title track (a politically trenchant piece that concludes with “every time you vote, you support the process”) plus two characteristic tunes he echoed later on with Smiths classics.
After hooraying how “The Bullfighter Dies” (“… and no one cries”) in a ditty so brief it felt like a snippet lost from a suite, he underscored his ever-prevalent point about animal cruelty with another doleful round of “Meat Is Murder,” updating lyrics as he went along (KFC was singled out as a killer, “the turkey you festively slice” criminal evidence).
More effectively, he rejoined the self-explanatory “Earth Is the Loneliest Planet” with the beautifully suicidal lullaby “Asleep,” a B-side he’d never played solo before this tour, perhaps dug up given its second life via prominent use in the 2012 film of the 1999 book The Perks of Being a Wallflower. “There is another world,” he sings as piano carries us off. “There is a better world … oh, there must be.”
The more explosive adios “One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell” ended the 100-minute performance in starkly dramatic fashion, while “Hand in Glove” – one of his early signatures, and the only other Smiths song in the mix – opened with its harmonica howl and still-ill imagery.
“The National Front Disco” finished the main set plus a few long-neglected tracks.
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