Wireless Review - Morrissey
Day 2 of Wireless and Xfm adjusts its hearing aid, sticks some daffs in its back pocket and heads down to Hyde Park to pay homage.
Although the clouds threatened to do their worst, Friday at Wireless turned out nice after all. Those rumours of Hyde Park banning the burger vans in honour of the headliner were just that, and there was many a retro Smiths t-shirt in attendance.
As the afternoon got underway, Dirty Pretty Things gave their new album ‘Romance At Short Notice’ a proper airing, indicating that Carl Barat’s obsession with all things English didn’t die with The Libertines. Later on, The Wombats proved that they’ve consolidated their position as one of the nation’s best live bands with another sterling set, coping admirably with a couple of technical problems. Announcing they’re plating the massive Liverpool Echo Arena at Christmas may have seen ambitious, but they’ll have picked up enough new fans by the end of summer to walk it, no problem…
At the Sandisk tent, Siouxsie Sioux was shaming young pretenders half her age by bounding across the stage in a silver catsuit. The original spirit of punk still lives, apparently, and there were a few old school Goths in the audience whose hearts were gladdened by the performance of some Banshees classics. ‘Israel’, ‘Arabian Nights’, ‘Christine’ and ‘Happy House’ were given a thorough workout by the Sioux tonsils, but as often happens, Ms Ballion’s hellion tones tend to grate after a while. Good to see her, though.
Over on the main stage, a long-haired, be-sunglassed Beck took the audience through an impressive selection of hits – ‘New Pollution’, ‘Loser’, ‘Where It’s At’ – plus a couple of selections from the new one, ‘Modern Guilt’. It was a low-key performance, lacking the inventive wackiness of previous festival appearances – in short, there were no puppet shows this time.
And then onto the main event. Introduced with a bizarre selection of archive clips of the usual obsessions (‘A Taste Of Honey’ author Shelagh Delaney talking about Salford, for starters), Morrissey led his lookalike band through a carefully-balanced set of oldies that took in ‘Famous International Playboys’, ‘Ask’, ‘Sister, I’m A Poet’, ‘Stretch Out And Wait’ and some new material from the forthcoming ‘Years Of Refusal’ album.
The pace was stately, and missed something of the outrageous theatricality we’re used to from His Mozness, but this was made up for with a couple of pleasant surprises – a serene ‘Death Of A Disco Dancer’ and the slight-but-sweet ‘Stretch Out And Wait’. ‘Vicar In A Tutu’ was a bit unnecessary, as was the sarcastic comment on Kylie Minogue’s OBE. Leave her alone, she’s been poorly!
Ironically ending with the ‘Meat Is Murder’-era tracks ‘What She Said’ and ‘How Soon Is Now’, along with Morrissey’s sour comments about the “death in our veins” from the burger vans (although that cheeseburger went down a treat), this wasn’t vintage Moz, but did nicely for a warm summer day outdoors.