Well, this is the first time in ages I’m addressing the old NME/Moz war. I think that now after 11 and half years I can also see things more clearly, and surely so can Moz himself and the NME ex- staff (I don’t think many of those infamous people still works for the mag). I think I still have a copy of that rag in my parents’ house, because after I read it I shut it in a drawer, never to open it again. The fact is that I was there at Finsbury Park, and I witnessed what happened from start to finish. How many of you were there? It was a horrible day to everyone. I watched Morrissey’s gig squeezed in the pit next to a girl who fainted over me at least 3 times. Moz was being pelted with any suitable object people could find. The audience was extremely hostile. When I saw him wrapped in that flag I felt like jumping on the stage and tear it to pieces and shout to him “What the heck are you doing to yourself you moron!”. I left soon after Morrissey’s show, amazed that I was still alive and well. While I was getting out Moz’s Mercedes brushed past myself and I caught a glimpse of him on the back seat (I think his mother or his sister was driving), he was doubled up with his head buried in his arms. I didn’t bother him. He looked so shattered he would have probably told me to piss off. I just thought “Why is he doing this to himself? He has a new awesome record out, this could be the final victory over all his enemies, a smashing worldwide hit, and he’s destroying everything for what?”. He should have expected what was to follow. I had, though I was only 16 at that time. A few years later, in one of those “Q and A” interviews in some British magazine he was asked what his worse defect was. He said “Unlimited self-sabotage”. Well, what he did at Finsbury Park was a spectacular exhibition of his worse defect!
Having said that, what the NME (and all the British press) did to him was horrible and shameful. What irked me most is that when Speedway came out all those horrible people giggled and congratulated to each other almost saying “Hee hee we really hit him hard with that stuff. He’s still bearing grudges against us!”. I’m sure the former NME chief editor is still going around proudly saying that he’s responsible for Moz moving to the States. And I’m not sure that Morrissey has really forgotten and forgiven. It’s not like him.
) Mmm, is that a nice poster... I think it is! Yummie!