While Im reminiscing about a good concert, I、ll repost excerpts from a review I gave to the Maladjusted list (a private one that does not tolerate jerkwads):、
I wasn't going to write a review for Solo, and a lot of it would be redundant because others posted earlier:
I am so happy tonight and had an excellent time despite the ho-hum setlist. I was pleased to hear Some Grrrls Are Angrier Than Others. His lyric addition (which he has been doing for a while now) was similar to the lyric addition Moz sang when the Smiffs last did a concert 12/12/1986: "On the shop floor there's a calendar pointing out what we already knew..." As usual, I enjoyed Ask, and I got my second handshake during that song.
I was in such a good mood with the queue situation sorted, the excited but not too violent GA crowd, and the welcome reassurance that I wasn't on Mozzer's shitlist for the last mic exchange that caused his face to fall 20 leagues, that I didn't let irritations such as Pooley's cheesy 80s (not in a good way) synth sounds, Moz ruining "I Keep Mine Hidden" again, and the tired songs I don't want to hear anymore get me down.
Moz asked what was the big thrill of living in Albuquerque and gave me the mic first. Since I don't live in ABQ, I said, "I don't know. All I know is that I don't eat my friends, but you look good enough to mmmmm!" He was annoyed because I didn't give a short answer, and he hates come-ons and compliments. He passed the mic round to others. The girl (underage) who queued for two days got the mic, and she answered, "Beggars!" That's because there are a lot of street people in this section of town, and they beg a lot.
The morning of the show, an elderly street man hobbled up to the girls in the queue and harassed them. I got up from my chair to shoo away the stinky alcoholic old creep when he started touching the girls at the front of the queue. He leaned in close to the girl at the head of the queue (who said "Beggars" into the mic) and drunkenly growled, "LET ME KISS YOU!" Hah hah, I joked that he was Morrissey in disguise (or in 20 years if Moz became homeless and alcoholic). You know those old legends about kings and angels dressing up as beggars and seeing how people treat the undesirables as a test of their character. And Steven (though he doesn't use that name) means "king". Anyway, that bum trying to grope them was traumatising to these girls. We can laugh about it now, but at the time...oh never mind.
I think someone finally said the great thrill of living in ABQ was seeing Morrissey!
Morrissey wanted people to stage invade and hug him. As he said on a previous night, he asked nobody in particular, "Get the message?" But it wasn't until the predictable encore of FOTGTD that people tried. Security was plentiful and on top of it. Lots of people crowd surfed to shake Mozzer's hand, but nobody made it onstage to actually give Moz full-on body hug. As he had done at earlier shows this tour, he started singing lyrics from "Swinging on a Star" during FOTGTD. The funniest bit is when he purposefully changed the part where Little Eva says she doesn't want to be a pig: Moz said, "I want to be a pig."
A tidbit of trivia -- on the rough cut or promo version of "Introducing Morrissey", during the montage of fans stage invading to hug Mozzer, "Swinging on a Star" was used. I guess either they couldn't secure the rights to that song or just weren't willing to pay the fee for the rights, so one of Mozzer's own songs was used instead -- was it "Will Never Marry" or "Seasick"? Gah, the onset of senility. And in the beginning of "Introducing" the streaky noise from Nico's "Frozen Warnings" was replaced by silence.
Moz also mentioned Coachella, asking, "Nobody is going to Coachella except for...me?" He was looking at me, and I shook my head and shrank back in fear that he might demand an answer with the mic in my face. I refuse on principle to go to a festival out in the desert where one is not allowed to bring in water but must pay exorbitant prices for a small bottle of what should be a basic human provision. Fuk dat zhit! The only difference between a psychokiller and Goldenvoice is that the psychokiller would chop you up into little pieces (a step GV would forgo in place of raiding your wallet) after sodomising you, before leaving your corpse to rot in the desert. But I didn't want to tell Moz that. All he would hear is NO and think it was a rejection of him, or at least that's what I feared. Most sensible (an oxymoron, I know) fans feel similarly and are skipping Coachella in favour of intimate venues like in ABQ. Rumours are that a special surprise is planned. But when I heard that maybe they'll do some old songs like a certain song that has been soundchecked on this tour already and requires an upright bass for full rockabilly effect, I felt confident in my decision to NOT spend a day sweating amongst a horde of stinky hippies and fratboys who suddenly perk up during HSIN because, dude, that's song KROQ and Star98 play! Moz probably wouldn't get to play a full set. And all the bands that matter already came through town and played full sets in nice intimate venues with blissful A/C.
During the mic encounter, I gave Moz a tiny heartshaped tin of Elvis Love Me Tender mints. He seems to like little presents, especially ones that he can shake or jiggle. The Elvis mints make a pleasing maracas-like sound when shaken. Upon receipt he graciously thanked me for it. But later, he held it up to me and made a funny, quizzical face. I hope he doesn't think I was implying that he needed to freshen his breath with mints. They were just cute and Elvis related, so I got them.
Band were in brown shirts and grey trousers. I really meant Moz looked good enough to eat. Started out wearing a black shirt with black trousers. Even though he looked more youthful in denims, the ones he was wearing on this tour were too baggy and made him look unkempt, not slimmer like when he was emaciated back in the day. The trousers were more tailored to his body and fit well. I liked this look. He threw the black shirt into the middle of the audience. Changed to a lovely white shirt with some gorgeous swirling detailed stitching in white. He didn't toss the white shirt out. He left the stage to change into a black shirt with a pattern of oval rounds or diamonds interlinking of red, blue, grey, and white. It was a groovy shirt, alas he did not throw it to the raving mob.
I think by this time, the guy that queued with us and had been standing to my left let some stranger in because the stranger was so hyped and excited, desperate to be up front to show Moz his humble homemade sign (but not desperate enough to queue, I guess). So the excitable jumped up middle-aged lad had a sign that read, "WILL WORK FOR SHIRT". He kept waving it about even after Moz acknowledged it with a funny face. So when Moz came on for the encore in a purple shirt, he threw it right to us. Naturally the guy with the sign (on my left) grabbed hold of one end. The guy on my right (my hero) grabbed the other end. I had no interest in the shirt. I just wanted to escape the mauling that was bound to occur.
This is like the 5th time I've been involuntarily caught in a shirt scrum. Moz can be a sadist. I remember he kept teasing us in King's Lynn by clutching his shirt and asking us, "Do you want this shirt, this shirt?" while we were screaming, "No, we don't want the shirt! Away to f***, you sadistic old bastard!" Anyway, the shirt was pulled taut across my neck, strangling me.
Oh, the irony! It was a combination of my dumb luck to be standing by the guy with the sign about the shirt, and that Moz gets off on the melee over his shirt and he probably likes to see us contorted and crazed. Luckily, my hero helped me by raising one end high so I could escape the fabric garotte. The fight for the shirt went on well past the end of the encore and even past the breakdown of the stage. Doomie, who makes awesome vegan tacos at wumpskate gave me a piece (his girlfriend made a beautiful effort at stage invading during the encore -- pretty sure she at least got a happy handshake from duh Man). But I gave it to my hero upon discovering that he was not successful in the shirt scrum. The shirt scrap smelled like Mozzer's old fragrance -- Incense par Avignon. Acrid, smoky, and slightly sweet that burns off to a rather cloying powdery sweetness.
Oh well, I was still close enough. 
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