PHILADELPHIA, July 23 — It should be no big deal, right? A singer announces that he is canceling some tour dates while he tries to recover from a viral infection. Fans respond reasonably: they shrug it off, wish him well and wait until next time
But then, Morrissey isn’t just any singer: he has become one of the defining rock stars of the past few decades by virtue of his grand voice, his grander songs and his charming habit of playing with melodrama.
And suffice it to say that his fans — like the proud but self-pitying characters in his songs — aren’t exactly known for their reasonableness. After the cancellations were announced, Morrissey message boards were lit up with salvos from the disgruntled (some of whom claimed slow ticket sales were the real culprit) and the still-fairly-gruntled. One fan called Morrissey “an unprofessional bore,” adding, “It’s over between us.” A typically understated response: “Instead of psychologically enhancing him, and trying to make him feel better, you sit here and utilize mind terrorism on him. Are you all republican.
Some of the concerts — including planned appearances at Madison Square Garden (June 30) and the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, N.J. (July 6) — haven’t been rescheduled. But on Monday night, Morrissey came to the Mann Center here, for a concert that had been postponed from June 29. His normally smooth voice sounded a little froggy, but he seemed to be in a great (even goofy) mood, which more than made up for the occasional rasp.
“You show great spirit in the face of chronic adversity,” he said, by way of tribute to those who hadn’t forsaken him. And even the finickiest fan must admit that there is simply nothing un-fun about watching a 48-year-old man rip off his shirt while crooning, “Then you open your eyes/And you see someone that you physically despise.”
Never mind what the ear, nose and throat specialist says: Morrissey, often lampooned as the most delicate of flowers, turns out to be sturdier than just about any of his contemporaries. His old band, the Smiths, was formed a quarter-century ago in Manchester, England, and though the group lasted only five years, Smiths songs remain staples of indie-rock playlists around the world. His eight solo albums haven’t all been equally successful, but they’re all worth hearing, and the best songs rank with any of the Smiths’ classics.
In short, he still drives his fans nuts, he still puts on a great show, and he still hasn’t become an oldies act. Back in the 1980s, who could have predicted that?
Monday’s concert included a handful of old favorites — “The Boy With the Thorn in His Side,” “Girlfriend in a Coma,” “How Soon Is Now?” — all of which sounded as ambiguous, and as funny, as they ever did. (In chronicling his sad-sack heroes, Morrissey usually finds a way to hint at both sympathy and mockery.) In “How Soon Is Now?,” soon after he sang, “I am human and I need to be loved/Just like everybody else does,” a beefy guy rushed the stage, planted a kiss on his hero’s neck and was promptly tackled by security. (It’s a Morrissey concert tradition.) “I am loved,” murmured the singer, unperturbed.
On his two most recent albums — “You Are the Quarry,” from 2004, and “Ringleader of the Tormentors,” from last year — he has embraced a brawny, heavy rock ’n’ roll sound. One guitarist added a swaggering hard-rock riff to “I Will See You in Far-Off Places,” a trudging song from the latter CD. Sometimes the new songs reflected his continuing sturdiness a bit too well: the band marched grimly ahead while he sang the (always witty) lyrics. But if that’s what keeps him going, it’s worth it.
One of his best recent songs is “First of the Gang to Die,” an ode to an antihero from “You Are the Quarry”; it has already become a fan favorite. On Monday night, he tweaked the lyrics, singing, “And he stole from the rich — which is you/And the poor — which is me.” And as he worked the crowd nonstop, grabbing hands and pausing to acknowledge screamed requests and fending off kissers, you could see what he meant: stardom is hard work, even (or especially) cult stardom.
Maybe he should be careful about all that human contact: isn’t that how someone catches a virus? Or maybe he likes to remind himself that his career, and his health, are at the mercy of fans who can be as gentle or as vicious as anyone else in love. This show felt like a triumph, but it also felt like a pleasant surprise, even though Morrissey has been doing this since the 1980s. “You feared the worst, as you should,” he said. “But occasionally. ...”
