"Self appointed experts", "Dull as ditchwater tribute band" - both utter knackers. I was there, know some of the panellists and the band were fricking great. Anyway, on to the salient point.
Morrissey's nephew was there, and did read a message from Morrissey. Far from pointing out "various factual inaccuracies in the book", it dwelt on one point only, in Chapter Eleven, which asked if Morrissey had pitch-controlled his voice on 'Skull'. That's what Morrissey picked up on when reading the book, and that's what his nephew read out. The statement made it clear that Morrissey had not altered his voice and went on to explain that singing in that high register was actually starting to damage Morrissey's vocal cords, hence the shift down for later live performances.
That's what happened. The article on the Word blog exaggerates things somewhat.
Oh, and the evening ground to a halt after that, because it was going to before. His statement was the last bit of the evening. Several people asked questions, the event was about to be wrapped up, Eoin said "Any more questions?" and then the statement. To suggest that the event was ended because of the statement and the 'ashen faced' panellists is plain wrong.
P.