Review: Johnny Marr live @ Leeds Academy

“The weekend starts here!” Johnny Marr whoops and, although he’s technically incorrect (it’s still only Wednesday, even in Leeds) the audience hollers back their agreement, leaving him at least morally in the right.

Not holding back their enthusiasm, tonight’s assembled punters are a soft touch for the singer, but you sense with this lot of doughty ex-football casuals that outside of the confines of an audience with their hero things always have the possibility of escalating quickly.

Woe betide then the errant Cub Scout who doesn’t double bag their shopping on Children In Need night, but for Johnny Marr there is a feeling that any dues have been well and truly paid. Live4ever first caught him solo at Sheffield’s Leadmill on that initial tour last year, one during which you felt despite his years he was still taking baby steps, cautious of the pitfalls.

Tonight he’s been upgraded though, as the lights which pick out ‘Playland‘ (and later, “Johnny Fucking Marr”) bear testimony to. Part Vegas, part Blackpool, they garishly stick up a metaphysical two fingers to the toilet circuit, signposting the broadened horizons of a second album which by consensus is more confident, creative and accomplished than his first.

Of course, he doesn’t just have the last eighteen months worth of material up his sleeve, he also has the co-dibs to all of the stuff recorded by The Sm…them of course, and tonight’s set is a hybrid of both worlds, ones which some purists might argue should be hermetically sealed to avoid cross-contamination. Any chance of that happening though is torpedoed by song two, a rousing version of ‘Panic‘ played on the Leeds side streets that we slip down to a kind of bewildered awe that must’ve had him wondering why it’s taken twenty years to get round to the idea.

The presence of this dynamite ‘old stuff’ dilutes slightly a set list which is, as you would, imagine ‘Playland’-heavy, including its respective highlights ‘Dynamo‘, the furious opener ‘Back In The Box‘ and the superior indie-disco of ‘Easy Money‘. These songs, these new things, are unremarkable in structure but fervently delivered by an artist who’s now channeling his off stage need for control into artistic conviction: Johnny Marr believes in this music, and wants you to as well.

The epiphany comes though during ‘The Headmaster Ritual‘, the caterwauling opener to The Smiths‘ 1985 meisterwork ‘Meat Is Murder‘, a record as full of bile and indescribable tenderness as to ever reach number 2 in the charts. They say that couples tend to grow more like each other over time; during this rendering of one of Morrissey and Marr’s signature moments, we realise that for those two, barely a truer statement was ever uttered. Estranged, we grant you, but like other celebrity divorced couples they choose to communicate to each other through books and interviews, not making direct contact for fear of mutual combustion.

The pain of their separation may now be gone for Joz and Moz, but it’s surely not forgotten. Both have moved on of course, but tellingly each embraces their shared creations like parents on an access weekend, keen to put their stamp on things, but ready to indulge the offspring if necessary.

This nostalgia has resulted in a tendency to over elaborate for both protagonists, but let’s face it, the popular phrase doesn’t go “Johnny Marr plays guitar” for nothing, and the audience are treated to an off the cuff display of virtuosity that reaches ecstatic proportions. There’s one notable mis-step – a fuzzy, rudderless take on Electronic’s genius Getting Away With It – but playing anthems like Still Ill and Bigmouth Strikes Again to a crowd this partisan goes down predictably like showering them with free gravy, music imbued with a timelessness which has allowed it’s appeal to span generations.

Paradoxically, choosing ‘There Is a Light That Never Goes Out‘ to finish is perhaps the bravest decision the new-ish frontman will ever make. The original is pressed as earnestly close to the hearts of millions of Smiths fans worldwide as anything in their canon, hence any attempts to escape its darkly romantic event horizon are usually considered acts of treason. Tonight though it’s a ribald singa-longa-hugga-longa version, it’s delicate subtleties thrown out in the cause of uniting car salesman and student alike. Audacious? In certain circles yes. But it works.

The after-curtain quartet are not so much an encore as a victory lap, although Noel Gallagher is absent during a romp through Iggy Pop‘s ‘Lust For Life‘. The finale neatly illustrates how almost anything is possible: ‘How Soon Is Now‘ was vilified at the time by the straight world as a tuneless dirge that defined both Morrissey’s gauche inability to express complex emotions and the band’s contrarian view on what constituted pop.

Thirty-plus years later it’s received like a New-er Testament, its words now speaking more accurately to the extreme social isolation of the present than its past. Afterwards, Marr stays briefly on, punching the air as if not even oxygen can outbox him, soaking up the reverence and love. Like Gloria Gaynor, he knew he would survive, and nights like this are testimony to how much breaking up can cause one party to come out stronger and more dignified than the other.

Now free to do whatever he wants on his own terms, Johnny Marr will be sending postcards to his ex for many more years to come.

(Andy Peterson)