That he is comfortable with that legacy was confirmed by his decision to open his first UK show in nearly two years with How Soon is Now. The song was as you remember it, but the singer - who sang much of it while lying against the drum riser - bore only a passing resemblance to the effete young thing who sang it in 1984.Who even knows what half of that means? My anglophilia draws a line at futbol jibber-jabber. Still it's funny that Morrissey is criticized for having outdated notions of Englishness when you try to parse that description.
If the greying quiff, brown shirt and tie gave Morrissey the air of a hard-bitten Seventies football manager - in the Brian Clough or Don Revie mould - the parallels seemed apt. He addressed the crowd with a brisk: “Hello, West Ham”. His band, too, played with a fists-up zeal, redolent of football teams that emerge from the tunnel to a world that they're told wants them to fall flat on their faces.
All the same, it's an astute review that reminds us that the Smiths were a long time ago, Johnny Marr wasn't all that, and these are the good old days when it comes to the world of Moz.
