In the Beginning: Johnny Marr

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 40^th 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