Morrissey, the grumpy and foul-mouthed genius who will move us until we die
The Briton approves the premiere of his latest album thanks to the classics of all time, at the last concert of the first Barts Festival at the Poble Espanyol
BarcelonaIn just over a decade, Morrissey has gone from playing at Palau Sant Jordi, and his visit being a major event, to doing so at Poble Espanyol and it having little cultural relevance. Nowadays, everyone knows the reasons why this has happened: this grumpy old man no longer makes particularly good records and, above all, insists, day in and day out, on behaving like a complete idiot, whether by skirting (or directly crossing) red lines with racism or cancelling concerts at will. But the songs, alas, the songs are still there, intact, glorious. So when Morrissey, the leader of The Smiths, the great English pop singer of the eighties, pipes up, there is always a congregation ready to listen to him once more.
Dressed in black, unbuttoned, and surrounded by flowers, a custom he has maintained since The Smiths, Steven Patrick Morrissey was in charge of closing, this Saturday, the first edition of the Barts Festival. A luxurious farewell for a newly created festival that has attracted 68,000 attendees. But he must also be acknowledged for some bad luck: the Briton was coming to present one of the most inconsistent —or directly bad— albums of his long career. Make-up is a lie is an anodyne and repetitive LP, a work that no one will remember in a short while within a catalogue full of anthems.
The concert began by showing off with Billy Budd, a song with powerful guitars that has appeared and disappeared from his live shows. Always prone to surprises, yesterday's was The Youngest Was the Most Loved, breaking a trend that works very well for him: when you have so many albums, playing the best from each is enough. Yesterday he did it with two excellent songs, I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris and First of the Gang to Die, the standout track from You Are the Quarry, from 2004, perhaps one of Morrissey's last great albums. When it played, the audience woke up after a somewhat sleepy first part. And that's even though one from The Smiths, A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours, had already been played.
"The world has ended, everything has ended", Morrissey said, grumbling, on stage. He will hit the mark with what he says or sings, but his voice remains as good as ever: 40 years have passed and it still shines above all else. This gentleman will leave making the best melodies in the world, and singing them even better. Some Saturday ballads, such as Kerching Kerching —by far the most successful of the five that were played from the album— or Now My Heart Is Full, were exciting and transparent, sung with the same smoothness as always.
The rain gave wings to the concert
After a rough first part of the concert, two elements entered the stage, and at the same time, to change the trend: the rain made its presence felt at just the right moment, when How Soon Is Now?, an old Smiths hit, was playing. Whether it was magic or a stroke of luck, the epic nature of the moment gave wings to the show, which faced the second part with much more punch. And while the fans endured the summer downpour, the Manchester singer unleashed his best weapons, moving with charisma on stage as if nothing was happening. As if those lightning bolts, emerging from behind the stage, didn't exist. And they did exist, but it didn't matter, because then the beautiful Everyday Is Like Sunday was playing and nothing else mattered.
The end of the recital was introduced by a prophecy: “This will be the national anthem of Spain,” he said before launching into The Bullfighter Dies, which he hadn't performed all tour, accompanied by cruel images of bullfights. It's no coincidence that these images appear at his concerts in Spain, as Moz has sent a letter to Pedro Sánchez asking for them to end once and for all. By the way, as always, not a trace of animal food in the entire venue: security guards were fed up with opening attendees' sandwiches to check that no chorizo, bacon, ham, or any other cured meat was being brought in.
After speaking ill of governments, generally speaking, Morrissey closed the night with his first major solo hit, Suedehead, and the two tracks with which he has concluded his shows lately: Irish Blood, English Heart and Jack the Ripper. A concert, in short, that without changing the lives of his most faithful followers, left moments of signature genius. It all concluded with There Is a Light That Never Goes Out. There is little to say about this marvel: it is one of the best and most moving songs ever written by humankind.
And this is Morrissey, the ill-tempered and big-mouthed man who will move us until we die. And doing so while listening to him, as the song says, "it will be a pleasure." The contrasts, which in both a good and bad sense are his personal trademark, also apply to his concerts. In any case, it is clear that, whether he hits the repertoire more or less, no one will ever reproach him for his attitude on stage. There he is an almost incomparable genius. Down there, it's another matter.
