Touching off from Plymouth 'Rock'...
(oh hey, the ability to title our posts is gone...)
Unfortunately made it to venue a tad late.
Plymouth is beautiful. Highly recommend this for holiday.
This is whence the Pilgrims departed for the New World, nice heritage connection. Not sure if this is why it's on the tour.
Highlights for me:
The Set: This time around there are large concave sheets of what look like flattened disco balls with their core in front, about 5 placed along the back 'wall' of the stage. As "Satellite of Love" played, the light bulb figuratively and literally went on above my head... ingenious (!). During a later song spinning spiral gelled lights were reflected on these so all the audience is gently lit without the harsh glare of stage lights blaring straight at our eyes. So if we cry, it's truly for the songs this time and not the glare. Thumbs up to that. During "I Know It's Over" the core of the 'satellites' lit up with an incandescent glow, simulating candlelight, really beautiful ambience for a special song.
Set List: Missed the first few, but overall the songs sound a lot more lush-- Bravo to Gustavo for the beautiful keyboard work, Jesse for totally killing it (the good way) on the outro of "Ouija Board...", Solomon for the awwwesome riff beginning "One Day Goodbye...", Matt uses the gongs a bit more for this set of songs and it sounds great, Boz ever the maestro and coming forward a good bit to play for the audience. Favourite songs of the night: "Alma Matters" (first time I think I've seen this live), "Satellite of Love," "Action Is My Middle Name" (very seductive! Like this one very much), "People Are the Same Everywhere" (great melody on this one as well... I think the la-la's have now been filled out with lyrics? I didn't hear a string of them like on the Janice Long broadcast, unless that was for the third new song not being played?), "Everyday Is Like Sunday" (perfect for this seaside town, Thank God they forgot to shut it down).
"Meat is Murder"... I was worried how graphic the visuals would be, as I've been reading from other reviews. It was actually done very well for the message, not detracting from M singing the song, which he ad-libbed a lot of today to get his message across more personally ("... Do you care?" "Kill, eat, murder"...). I saw a few people walk out during this one, not sure if it was the song or just an early night for them. Would be sad if it was the message. Fair weather fans? Even if one doesn't agree with vegetarianism, the graphics clearly show how wrong it is for animals in the 'mass-meat industrial complex,' totally mistreated a la the cat video, being thrown about, stuffed in cages and pens, being hung alive. Definitely exposes a lack of humane-ity there. The graphics are at half-brightness, on top of the printed backdrop, and there is some text that blips across at certain points. It's not rudely bright in your face. Important to hear M out on this one, imho.
Banter:
- Intro'd the band as a cast starting with Boz, ending with Jesse (saying something like, "have I forgotten someone?" or something),
- After a song was started then stopped (looks like some think it was Speedway?), M said "Everyone makes mistakes, it's human, and to be human is to be loved." Then, "Next one" to the band.
- "I am not fat."
- "It's not what you think" before playing the encore (I was dug too deep behind the crowd to understand what this meant, so if anyone closer can explain?)
- "Ciao!!" at the end.
Merch: Great shirts "England Is Mine and It Owes Me a Living" text in the style of the Carry On quotes (different color t-shirts), other t-shirts with M's fine face (if I remember correctly it's the newer Everyday Is Like Sunday single image), tote bag, mugs, buttons, very nice poster of the bath photo from Linder Sterling (Morrissey Shot book) that's used for "The Very Best of Morrissey." Support the Moz cause... buy some merch. A lot of different stuff is being offered this time compared to before.
Roll on, Hop Farm...
cheers,
romeogirl