Was the stage 30 ft. high again?

use to live there, do miss lake effect snow, or the suburban snore/sprawl . . . hope morrissey spat all over the place :)

come nuclear bomb(s)!!!!

I just returned from the show and it was the first one I have seen this tour. I arrived at 5:15 and there was already about 150 people in the queue. After weathering a brisk hour and a half outside, we were allowed in.

The venue was very nice. It looked like a either an Acapulco resort or a Moroccan village. Damien came on and was very friendly and intense.

Morrissey came out with the band (dressed in their Jobraith shirts). How Soon is Now kicked off the evening. After the song he welcomed us into his ballroom.

It was obvious Morrissey wasn’t happy with the acoustics of either the band and/or the venue. The stage was about 7 feet off the ground making it difficult for anyone to rush the stage.

Some comments he made were (I am paraphrasing):
• I have to do my duty to persuade you to help not reelect Bush (mixed reaction, then into "Crashing Bores")
• "We are all specs of dust in this world. What’s the point?”
• He told mentioned Julia and something about not crushing her (I was two rows behind her, I think. She looked like she was wearing broken glass. Was that her with the Hawaiian looking guy?)
• He asked the crowd if they would catch him if he fell off of the stage.
• "Nice try" (when someone did a really lame attempt to get onstage. No one made it.)

He did make a clever change in "Big Mouth" replacing hearing aid with IPod.

My own comments:
• You Know I Wouldn’t Last is awesome live
• When Did Boz start looking like my Dad?
• No major change in set list but "The More You Ignore Me…. " was added.
• Semiweek crowd.

I just wanna know who wound up with the shirt. There was a mad battle still going on for it as I left. Not even security could untangle things.

After the concert the band was seen eating and hanging out of a balcony above the venue overlooking the L-tracks. Some people near me joked that they should start singing songs from Evita to the crowd below. Everyone seemed to be there except Moz.

again a great show. I last saw him here with the smiths for The Queen Is Dead in 1986. He hasn't changed that much as a performer! I think it was better than the HOB show because the audience was sooo into him. No rushing...I missed that> It's just not a moz show without it.

The show was great! The security was so-so. I was two people over from Julia.

Morrissey only got to touch hands with one fan- (way to go, Lucas!)

The fans were great.

Morrissey made a depressing comment about dying- "we are all dust" (I am paraphrasing).

Nobody could even really try to get on stage.

Damien Dempsey was AWESOME. He is inspired and inspiring. He is a handsome, sincere gent. He bears close watching. He sang his songs with great compassion.

Set list:
It was very similar to other shows. It was great.

Deano looked awesome with NO shirt on.

Also- Morrissey played plenty of Jobriath before the show started.

With love,

Ken Stavitzke

hsin
fotgtd
nov
let me kiss you
rubber ring
you know I couldn't last
I have forgiven jesus
how can anybody possibly know how I feel
bigmouth
such a little thing
irish blood english heart
the more you ignore me the closer i get
world is full of crashing bores
i like you
don't make fun of daddy's v.
let me kiss you
last night i dreamt that somebody loved me
subway train/everyday is like sunday
there is a light that never goes out

How Soon is Now-FOTGTD-NOVEMBER-I LIke You-Boars-Such a little thing-Daddy's Vox-Bigmouth-Let Me Kiss You-Jesus-Rubber Ring-IBEH-How Can Anybody-The More You Ignore-Sub/SUNDAY- Last Night I Dreampt-Encore:Light

whoops...switch...Last night and Sub/Sunday

Sorry. See you in Milwaukee

  Any Famous Faces out there tonight?
  Famous people from Chicago.
Like ummmm

  Eddie Vedder

awesome show, front row...my friend jason took home the first (white) shirt. GUCCI, if you were wondering, and it smelled great...kinda like incense and lotion...size 42/16. also, a girl gave him $50 for ONE BUTTON from it. awesome night, can't wait for tommorrow.

I arrived at 11 a.m. yesterday morning to line up for Morrissey. After waiting 7 and a half hours or so, we finally got to go in. The wait was totally worth it! This show was amazing. Only draw back being the very tall stage and the lame barrier, plus a billion security guards. The crowd up front was great, everyone was going crazy. Morrissey sounded absolutely perfect. The setlist was similar to what it's been, "Bigmouth Strikes Again" is so great to hear live. During the encore, he played "There is a Light That Never Goes Out". I lost it then, I tried to jump the barrier, of coarse, to no avail. As soon as I got shoved down I propped up on one hand and reached as far as I could for Morrissey. He actually stopped, kneeled down and reached back! I felt like I stretched 1,000 miles to get him, but I got his hand! The look in his eyes as he was reaching for me was the most amazing thing I've ever experienced. I was so elated, I smiled even after my face started to hurt! It was by far the best experience of my life. The night was amazing, and I am very excited about tonight!

First great show. Second, a girl tossed a flower to Morrissey and he tossed it back to the crowed and I cought it!!!!! So cool! Also after the show I saw this young girl with her parents and I asked her if this was her first Morrissey show and she said yes. So a gave her half of the flower that he touched. She was so happy and so was I.
Great night....thanks,
nissan

do you know why?

when he said that, it was funny to me.

the morrissey show was fantastic. it is hard for me to say which concert i preferred, the one he played in june under "corporate" pretenses or this one. but i was very pleased with the set list. when they opened with how soon is now i just about died. and i really enjoyed boz's gun guitar. that was very brilliant.

i thought that they played very well, and i too thought the ipod comment was great. morrissey is truly a great man to me.

it's wierd because i frequent the "smiths/morrissey" nights at delilah's here in chicago, and sometimes i think that the spirit of the fans is larger in that setting than it is in a live respect. but then again, that could be the alcohol. i thought the crowd could have given more. but they did all come together for "there is a light that never goes out" which is to be expected. it looked like the "bloys in the bland" really enjoyed the show.

and i'm all for gratuitous gong usage.

cheers,
aubrey

Grahmster has it all correct except that he missed the last song of the set. "You know I couldn't last" was last right after "Subway train (intro) / Every day is like Sunday" but before the "There is a light that never goes out" encore.

Great show.

this was my second Morrissey show. the first being a few years back when he played the chicago theater. this one was much better. i was worried that "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" would be dropped by the time he made it to Chicago. that would be just my luck. now that i've heard it live, i can die a happy man. didn't care much for Damien Dempsey. that might have something to do w/ the god awful acoustics of the Aragon. the only thing i would have changed would have been "I Like You" and "How Could Anyone Possibly Know How I Feel?" swap those two for "Sunny" and "Late Night, Maudlin Street ". either way i'm not complaining. see you tonight at The Rave.

p.s.
thanks Jen!

Dear Lord-- Morrissey should leave all shirt-taking-off-duties to that unbelievable creature.

Phenomenal voice and fantastic show! What a treat!

I just wish he'd leave politics aside. The comment that if "Bush is re-elected, Iraq would become safer than the United States" was totally uncalled for.. My response to comments like this is - first go and live in such a totalitarian dictatorship under the rule of a raging psychopath - and then we'll talk. It's too bad many don't realize how good they have it in the States.

Other than that - I'll remember this show for many years to come.

i just remember that he said "the truth is always disappointing. always." "the stage is very high and i'm as blind as a bat." such a little thing is actually very good live. but the only thing that irks me is that he only played ONE song from either arsenal, vauxhall, southpaw, or maladjusted. and that was the more you ignore me. he totally skips over four albums worth of material. really. what the fuck? and the keyboards sounded pretty bad most of the time too. but still the best concert i've ever seen. best night of my life.

This was a fabulous show!!! He was in great form, humorous, and deadly handsome (especially in the lavender shirt). I only wonder why anyone would have to drink copious amounts to enjoy a Morrissey show. Most people in Chicago were very nice. There is a great used book/record store by the Aragon that people should check out, can't quite remember the name though. Well a days rest and off to the next!

the show was amazing. Morrissey's voice sounded great and everything was very tight. i was probably 50 feet from the stage and everyone seemed so comatose. Anyone else notice this? Felt very surreal. People need to enjoy themselves and dance a little, Christ! Otherwise it was absolutely brilliant. I Have Forgiven Jesus sounded great and this show gave me a renewed love for the songs from You are the Quarry. Regards

What was up with the Aragon letting all the men go into the venue before the women? I would have been pissed off if I'd camped out all day only to have someone who showed up much later than me get in before I did. Separate pat downs be damned.

PERSONAL JESUS Morrissey @ the Aragon Ballroom, Chicago IL, 10/15/04 Lots of morbid, pale teenagers out there don't really buy into the whole organized religion thing. Usually they gravitate towards some kind of counterculture - Wicca, Neo-Pagan, what have you. Most of them, however, just go agnostic or full-on atheist. Your atypical high school outcast suffers from a spiritual deficiency that good Christians tend to find in Jesus. I never understood the whole Jesus thing - he was a great guy and all, and he had a lot of great ideas (the Golden Rule and whatnot), but I never understood the concept of deified, unconditional love. If you don't "get" the whole religious thing, then to whom do you turn when you want to be loved for who you are in spite of what society tells you that you have to be, in spite of your utter unpopularity? Who is supposed to comfort you in your times of need, of loneliness? Darling, have you ever heard of this little band called the Smiths? Morrissey, ex-singer for the Smiths and now critically acclaimed solo artist, is a Jesus of Manchester for those of us who have that spiritual malaise. If you love Morrissey - and one cannot simply like Morrissey, one loves Morrissey - you cannot deny that the man has an uncanny knack for understanding exactly how you feel and summing it up in a couple of self-deprecating, morose and witty lyrics. Clinical depression set to pop music. Hell, it worked for Nirvana, didn't it? But Morrissey is so much more than that. He's everyone's answer to "Why am I the only one who feels like this? Isn't there anyone who understands how I feel?" Everyone's been there. Probably even the popular kids who pick on you in gym class, but everybody knows they don't count. The feeling permeating the Aragon Ballroom the night of Morrissey's show was one of absolute community. My eyes swept from front to back to balcony, and I realized that every single one of these people have suffered in one way or another, have been cast out, don't fit the mold, don't like themselves much, and they needed so much to have someone tell them that they are loved despite all that melodramatic bullshit. If all of us had taken the time to talk to each other, we probably all would have ended up being really good friends. You could see the shyness, the need for acceptance, hanging over everyone's heads like broken halos. We just needed one thing to bring us together. And then he came on stage, flanked by ten-foot high neon letters spelling out "MORRISSEY" with red light bulbs. It was typical of his sense of humor, wry and ironic - the display was the kind of self-aggrandizement one would see at, say, a Bon Jovi concert. It was the same reason he used to wear Smiths t-shirts onstage, or why I had one on emblazoned with "ROCK AND ROLL MOTHERFUCKER." It's called sarcasm, kids. And we as an age group generally can't get anything pandered to us without a heavy seasoning of irony and sarcasm. This from a man in his mid-forties. Speaking of pandering, what better way to start off a show than with the chugging backwards guitar and accompanying synchronized strobe lights of "How Soon Is Now?" Nothing could have gotten the crowd more excited, nothing less would have satisfied us. "I am human and I need to be loved," Morrissey and the audience sang to each other, "just like everybody else does!" How succinct is that message? How plaintive is that statement, the one we've all wanted to scream aloud and demand its fulfillment? Morrissey answered it. Morrissey understood; offered us salvation via song. He was in top form, twisting and writhing in various poses of sheer pretention, giving us hymns both old ("November Spawned A Monster") and new ("First Of the Gang To Die") to sing to him, to each other, and mostly to ourselves. Just as they say Jesus died on the cross to forgive us our sins, so too did Morrissey suffer to give us "the songs that saved your life" (a beautifully performed "Rubber Ring"). Morrissey is hardly a deity, but don't try to tell any of us that.

Did anyone else notice Jamie from "The Bachelor" waiting outside? Come on...I'm not the only one that watches that crap.

does anybody remember what time he started? i didn't get out of st. louis until 4 and got there in the middle of don't make fun of daddy's voice.

The show was amazing. You could tell he wasn't all too happy with the venue. One of the first comments he made was, "The stage is too high and I'm blind as a bat. If I fall, well, I guess you will catch me."

A few songs later he said, "MTV sponsored this concert. Does anybody actually watch MTV?" Of course, the crowd gave a resounding 'no!' to which Moz replied, "Then why does it exist?"

After "I Like You" he told the audience, "It sounds better on the album, but thanks anyway."

His voice was in top form and he gave a passionate performance complete with nipple rubbing and suggestive hand gestures, though he didn't seem to talk as much as others reported he did at previous shows. I saw numerous people around us crying, including myself during "Last Night I Dreamt..." The depth of emotion that Moz inspires in a crowd is unparalled. I have never seen a more charismatic performer in my life. No one can hold a crowd in the palm of his hand like Morrissey.

A double dose (so to speak) of Moz in Chi-town!

On Wednesday, November 3 at Martyr's Bar @ 3855 N. Lincoln, the (cover) band Tributosaurus becomes THE SMITHS! www.martyrslive.com

Tributosaurus is the Jurassic beast of multiple musical faces, and every month, the beast morphs into a different rock group. The finest musicians from Chicagoland join the core group to sit in…to sing and play songs they’ve wanted to cover all their lives.

p.s. if the crowd gets into this more than last friday's show, i will wonder to myself...

Damn, Moz & the bloybland put on an awesome show!

Pope of Mope pleases fans old and new at the Aragon

By Mehan Jayasuria
October 27, 2004 in Voices

One never knows quite what to expect at a Morrissey show. While this blanket statement is applicable in any number of ways, let’s start with the most immediately apparent: the audience. By this point, Morrissey’s obsessive fan base draws from so many subcultures that his audiences look about as diverse as a general-population sample. The demographic best represented on Friday night was the “old Morrissey fan”: Between 25 and 40 years of age, looking more like a parent than a concert-goer and possibly sporting an old Moz tour shirt as if it were a badge of honor. Meanwhile, Goths showed off their new tattoos to each other and young hipsters chain-smoked nervously (despite Morrissey’s prohibition on smoking at all shows).

But the truly remarkable thing about Morrissey is not the type of people he attracts to his music, but rather the obsessive devotion he draws from them. When Morrissey finally took the stage after a drawn-out intro, something else unexpected happened. He launched into “How Soon Is Now?,” the Smiths’ only U.S. radio hit. As that classic staccato guitar line ripped through the room, the crowd rushed the stage, singing, dancing, and (in rare instances) crying. Under the glow of a ten-foot tall sign spelling out “MORRISSEY” in red lights, the man of the hour strutted, belting out in that unmistakable voice, “I am human and I need to be loved/Just like anybody else does.” When a bouquet of orchids flew towards the stage, he caught them and expertly tossed them back into the crowd. We could all feel it; the Moz was back.

Just don’t call it a comeback. Despite a reluctance to play the Smiths’ songs since their breakup in ’87, Morrissey has finally started to consistently work them into his set, making many a fan’s dream come true—especially those fans too young to have seen the Smiths during their short lifespan. Additionally, this is his first major tour in years, supporting the excellent You Are the Quarry, his first record since 1997’s ill-received Maladjusted.

Never one to let his past outshine him, Morrissey chose to follow up the opener with “First of the Gang to Die,” the strongest of his new batch of songs. With his outstanding backing band behind him, the song roared to life, eliciting nearly as much excitement as the opening number. Morrissey’s voice sounded as good as ever as he sang his trademark tragicomic lyrics: “And he stole from the rich and the poor/And the not-very-rich/And the very poor/And he stole all hearts away.” During “November Spawned A Monster,” he unbuttoned his shirt and caressed himself before laying down on the stage and writhing, just as he had in the old days. “You do realize that if that Bush character gets back in, Iraq will be safer than America,” he joked before “The World is Full of Crashing Bores.” Afterwards, he ripped off his shirt and threw it into the audience before running backstage for a change of clothes (he would do this two more times before the end of the night).

During the Smiths’ classic “Bigmouth Strikes Again,” the Pope of Mope proved that he’s still in touch by substituting “And now I know how Joan of Arc felt/As the flames rose to her Roman nose and her iPod started to melt” for the song’s infamous “Walkman” lyric. He briefly congratulated himself for three top 10 singles in Britain this year (a new record for him), before performing his new single “Let Me Kiss You.” “It’s much better on the CD, but thanks anyway,” he quipped. An unexpected and spot-on performance of the Smiths’ “Rubber Ring” followed—replete with a sample of Latvian psychologist Konstantin Raudive. When he played You Are the Quarry’s first single “Irish Blood, English Heart” next, the crowd worked into a frenzy. On record, the song’s pop-punk choruses sound almost tailor-made for the radio, due to Jerry Finn’s slick production. However, live, the song was born again—its signature guitar squeals and heavy riffs standing up to the best o