Morrissey - Live at Earl's Court

2004 was a banner year for Morrissey, as you probably know, with the initial release of You Are the Quarry, followed by what felt like a slew of expanded/deluxe/whatever versions of the same album. No matter the number, it was too much for me to keep up with, but I'm thankful for the chance to review Live at Earl's Court. Obviously, Morrissey hasn't entirely phased out his classic work with the Smiths in his live set; "How Soon is Now?" opens the show, and the rest of the setlist includes the favorites "Bigmouth Strikes Again," "There is a Light That Never Goes Out," "Shoplifters of the World Unite," and closes with "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me." These alone would make a very worthy live EP, for those of us who have only gotten into The Smiths in our college years and missed the live perfomances by a long shot. Of course, Moz offers up an additional 13 tracks of his own, forged in the post-Marr years. While the majority of the concert consists of songs from his latest album, such as the obligatory "First of the Gang to Die" and "Irish Blood, English Heart," he also throws in such solo gems as "November Spawned a Monster" and "The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get." Now I suppose I need to review this in terms of a live record and not as a "Morrissey's Hottest!" album. You'll be able to sense a change in the older Smiths songs; Morrissey even modernizes them in some instances. (Example: In "Bigmouth," Joan of Arc has traded in her Walkman for an I-Pod.) The man doesn't talk excessively between tracks and doesn't say anything worth noting here, but the record certainly puts the listener in whatever place you'd want to be, mentally, when listening to a live recording, and therefore, I consider it to be a success. [www.sanctuaryrecords.com]