Friday, June 12, 2015

Bleedin' Armadilla #3 - Morrissey @ The Saenger Theatre

Upon moving to New Orleans from Brooklyn, Kelly McClure and Lindsey Baker noticed a lack of music blogs featuring New Orleans music blog type things. This is a music blog type thing called Bleedin' Armadilla that will be a regular feature here on Total Bozo. This music blog type thing will focus on shows we see here in New Orleans, both local bands, and bands that tour in the area. Disclaimer: do not look to this music blog type thing for "actual' music coverage. We'll mostly just be talking about ourselves, and what sort of emotions, grievances, etc. we happened to have during these shows. Thank you. This is Bleedin' Armadilla.

The last time I bought a ticket to see Morrissey play a show was about a year or so ago. Maybe less actually, now that I'm thinking about it. I was living in Brooklyn, and I saw that he was gonna perform somewhere in NY, so I bought a ticket, because I always buy a ticket anytime there's a ticket made available for a Morrissey situation. That particular Morrissey situation was cancelled because Morrissey was made to suffer the airborne viruses of his opening act. I was sad that the situation was cancelled, and even thought something like "well, that won't be happening to ME again. I won't be buying any more tickets to his situations." But then I saw that he was gonna be playing in New Orleans, a place that we were planning to move to, so I thought "well, I better buy a ticket."

I spent most of yesterday afternoon at the hospital getting a weird bump removed from behind my ear. I had to get three stitches. Lindsey Baker and I had planned to ride our bikes to The Saenger Theatre for the Morrissey show but after putting on my bicycle helmet and discovering that the strap of it rubbed against my three stitches, we decided to take a cab instead. We got there early so we could loiter around and get a drink before the show. I got a "hurricane" flavored daiquiri and Lindsey Baker got a beer. We sat on a concrete wall of some sort, drinking, smoking, and taking in everyone's unique fashions for about 20 minutes or so, and then we went into the venue.

Once we got inside, before we went to the bathroom, bought more drinks, or did anything else, I wanted to buy a shirt. Morrissey always has the best shirts, and I wanted to make sure I had access to the full selection made available that evening, so I stood in a line to get to the shirts. I was in line for about another 20 minutes I'd say. While waiting, a tan blonde woman in front of me asked Lindsey Baker if she was "local," and then explained that she asked this because of her necklaces. I spent a few minutes trying to figure out what that meant, but couldn't figure it out, so I gave up and thought about something else.

I like to display my Morrissey shirts on my sheepskin rug. 

Lindsey Baker wanted me to buy this one particular Morrissey shirt because it was blue, but I pretty firmly did not want to buy that one for that very reason. I don't much care for the color blue. Blue used to be my favorite color when I was little, but now it's brown, or sometimes mustard yellow. Now when I think of the color blue it reminds me of cheap jeans. 

Once I made my shirt selections we went in and found our seats. Usually I try to get the best seats possible for a show, but I didn't for this one because I assumed he was just going to cancel anyway. He didn't cancel though, so we ended up sitting in the balcony. It worked out in the end because the theater is fairly small in size, so there's really no bad seat "in the house." Also, the ceiling of the theater is really decked out to look like a lit up night's sky, and we were closer to it than most people in the place, and therefore got to enjoy it more.

Morrissey came out and right away Lindsey Baker and I started wondering when he was gonna take his shirt off. He sang a lot of songs from his latest album, World Peace is None of Your Business, with a smattering of "the hits" mixed in. I feel bad when beloved artists make new albums and no one really wants to hear the songs from them because they just want to hear their favorite songs from older albums, so I made an effort to get "really into it" when he played his newer songs, and I actually 87% didn't mind. I pretty much genuinely like all of his songs, although I do have to agree that "the hits" are preferred.

Picture stolen from morrissey_fanatic99
During Morrissey's set a young man in a white t-shirt kept standing up and then looking behind him while making this movement with his arms that was intended to indicate the fact that he wanted everyone else to stand up as well. No one did though. I fully support Morrissey and wish him all the best in the world, but if I'm at a show with seats, I be sittin.'

Also spotted during Morrissey's set was an older gentleman off to the right of me who was dancing in a way that I could only describe as "wildly." While he was dancing, on two occasions (that I saw) the man next to him rubbed his butt.

For me personally, the highlight of the night would have been Morrissey performing one of my favorite Morrissey songs, "Speedway," but halfway through the song he had a guy from his band sing the rest of the song in Spanish, so my favorite lines: "In my own strange way, I've always been true to you/ In my own sick way, I'll always stay true to you" didn't resonate as strongly because they were sung in a different language and I'm a stupid American who only knows one language. Because of this ignorance on my end, the highlight was him singing "The World is Full of Crashing Bores" which contains another favorite set of lyrics: "This world, I am afraid, is designed for crashing bores, I am not one, I am not one/You don't understand, You don't understand." 

The entire night felt like it went by in under an hour, though I know it was longer. I got the sense that maybe Morrissey had a stomach ache, or was displeased with the audience because, although he performed amazingly, he only sang one song during the encore ("The Queen is Dead") and he only tore off one shirt, which was done at the end, and almost like a "fuck you" as he flung it into the crowd.

After the show Lindsey Baker and I sat on a different concrete slab and smoked while finishing our beers from the show. At one point I briefly thought I was going to definitely puke because a thing happened where a sneeze got stuck in my throat, causing me to gag on an intake of cigarette, all at the very moment of looking down and seeing a bug. But it went away. I didn't puke.

If your band has a show coming up in New Orleans that you'd like us to see, you can email us about it at