I’m 48 presently and in just shy of 22 months I will reach
the half century. For whatever reason 30 was not dirty and 40 was not naughty. My
life beginning 40th does not even register in my mind as having any
measure of significance though I must have been at university, so life was
changing, but I was a year or 2 premature in precipitating this morale boosting
transition. 50 feels different! It occurred to me earlier this year that
under no circumstances, by no stretch of the imagination, or with all the will
in the world, can I describe myself as being young.
As someway of marking the countdown I was inspired by the 50
gigs in a year challenge though eventually eschewing this test for a more
moderate 100 bands before I’m 50. I’m
not sure what you do about festivals with the 50 gigs challenge, does that only
count as one gig? I watched David Byrne
at the Manchester Arena and Ladytron at the Liverpool 02 Academy recently which
both would have made ideal opening gigs for the challenge, but I decided to
start the week after meaning Johnny Marr would be the first:
Band 1
Johnny Marr at the Manchester Apollo 18/11/2018
I still remember hearing the Peel Session version of What
Difference Does It Make? In the early 80s and thinking, rightly, that I’d not
heard anything like this before. I was
starting to wander from my first love of The Jam who I’d become a fan of just
after they split up. The Smiths were to
fill that void with aplomb and I spent a week in Wales on a family holiday
listening to tapes of Hatful of Hollow by The Smiths and Staring at The Sea by
The Cure. The Mexico 86 World Cup was on
TV, hand of God and all that, so I must have been 15. I was always more of a Marr fan that I was of
Morrissey, which is something of a relief these days, but I always loved how
working class kids were introduced to, and sometimes accepted, topics such as
poetry and female perspectives. I feel
that a lot of feminist commentators are just the acceptable face of sexism and
Morrissey and Marr were allowed into a world where strident bigots, of a certain hue, were not
welcome. In the case of Johnny's erstwhile writing partner things were to change drastically. That's another (old) story though 'but it goes on'.
Setlist
1.
The Tracers
2.
Bigmouth Strikes Again
3.
Jeopardy
4.
Day in Day Out
5.
New Dominions
6.
Hi Hello
7.
The Headmaster Ritual
8.
Walk into The Sea
9.
Getting Away With It
10.
Hey Angel
11.
Last Night I dreamt That Somebody Loved Me
12.
Spiral Cities
13.
Can’t Get You Out of My Head
14.
Get the Message
15.
Easy Money
16.
Boys Get Straight
17.
How Soon is Now
18.
Rise
19.
Bug
20.
There is A Light That Never Goes Out
21.
You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet Baby
The set was loaded with songs from his new album Call the
Comet (it was the Call the Comet tour to be fair) with a healthy smattering of
Smiths and Electronic numbers and even an abridged cover of a Kylie tune. I went with Jay and as is the normally the
way when we go out, I got too pissed and consequently don’t recall a lot of the
gig. I do remember having a good time
though.
Review Manchester
Evening News
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/music-nightlife-news/review-johnny-marr-manchester-o2-15433335
Pretty good start to the challenge and later this week I
have A Certain Ratio, and a support band to add to the list if I get in early
enough.
Photo Source: https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/music-nightlife-news/review-johnny-marr-manchester-o2-15433335
