BIGHEAD STRIKES AGAIN

Great gig, shame about the album

Morrissey, Live At Earls Court **

"After eight culturally obsolete years in self imposed exile in LA, 2004 witnessed Morrissey's all-conquering return to his homeland's cheerless marshes. There was the critically lauded (if essentially average) You Are The Quarry LP; four consecutive UK Top 10 hits; ubiquitous media saturation (including a rekindled love affair with the NME after a decade of mutual antagonism); his own Meltdown festival. And, to cap it all, a sell-out Christmas show at London'd Earls Court where, in spite of the venue's sterile acoustics, he gave one of the best performances of his career-a fact to which this writer (Block 16, Row D) can happily testify.

Four months on, here's the official souvenir. It's title? Live At Earl's Court - which from a pop provocateur of Morrissey's sloganeering genius ("Meat Is Murder", "Cook Bernard Matthews", even Quarry's "America Is Not The World") seems unforgivable. Mercifully, the record itself isn't quite the insipid cash-in its pedestrian name suggests, though as an audio document divorced from any dramatic spectacle it lacks the electric ambience of both his previous live offerings (1988's posthumous Smiths snapshot Rank, 1993's ragged glamathon Beethoven Was Deaf). For this, we can blame his timidly obedient backing band; a tight-knit troupe, but one slavishly dedicated to providing a purely perfunctory karaoke tape for their master's voice at the expense of any spontaneous magic. Still, what a voice. From opening cue to final bow, Morrissey's larynx has rarely sounded this Biblical in strength and stature. Even on the torrid, shopping-mall reggae attempt at Patti Smith's 'Redondo Beach', or a routine B-side like 'Friday Mourning' (a hackneyed regurgitation of the genital self-disgust begun in The Smiths' 'Miserable Lie' and Viva Hate's 'Late Night, Maudlin Street'), his trembling timbre never surrenders.

All of which only serves to compound Quarry's frustrating aftertaste. That in his mature, vocal prime, the most original pop singer of the past 25 years is merely cruising on autopilot when he could be breaking the sound barrier: if only, that is, he were given more challenging material, and musicians. As if to labour this very point, an impressively heartfelt finale of The Smiths' 'Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me' becomes a poignant reminder of a time when Morrissey had both. It ends with him theatrically beseeching his audience, "Don't forget me!". Impossible as that may seem, amid the embarrassment of riches Morrissey's provided over the past 22 years, Live At Earls Court is at best superfluous, at worst that very thing he dreads most. Forgettable."

I have to say I agree with Goddard's comments about Quarry - it is average - and about the strength and beauty of Morrissey's vocals and about the utter shame that is the autopiloted nature of his current work. I especially agree with SG's comments about the band - as he says, Morrissey could be breaking the sound barrier but instead he works with musicians who will never challenge him, who are reliable but uninspired, and who bring his work down these days to the level of mediocre. New collaborators needed!