“I’m pathologically someone who doesn’t really look back,” Johnny Marr told the BBC last month. The legendary guitarist’s entire musical life has been characterised by restlessness. He left The Smiths in 1987, after five years and four classic albums, and his path since has been one driven by wanderlust: the collaborations, the stints in other bands, the late-blooming solo career.
And yet, last night, during the biggest solo show of Marr’s life at Castlefield Bowl, he seemed to be in unusually nostalgic mood; there were no fewer than eight Smiths songs in the set, from the relatively obscure – ‘The Headmaster Ritual’ is a treat for the hardcore, containing some of his most brilliantly intricate work – to the hits, like “Panic”, “Bigmouth Strikes Again” and “This Charming Man”.
The Smiths’ catalogue is rare in its near-perfection; four wonderful albums, at least another record’s worth of singles and B-sides of similar quality, and a breakup before they had the chance to go off the boil. It is something to be cherished, which Marr himself increasingly seems to understand.
Johnny Marr, Morrissey, Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke of The Smiths on the 1985 Meat Is Murder Tour (Photo: Ross Marino/Getty Images)Morrissey, meanwhile, continues to drag the group’s name through the mud, having adopted a worldview entirely at odds with the lyrics he wrote for the group, like this one from “I Know It’s Over”: “It takes guts to be gentle and kind.” He would have played two shows at this same venue in 2018, only they were pulled when Hacienda DJ Dave Hallam planned a free Love Music, Hate Racism party around the corner in protest at the booking.
It is left to Marr to be the keeper of the Smiths flame. He has reportedly contributed to a forthcoming BBC documentary on the band, one that Morrissey has already written off as a hit piece before it’s even aired. “Marr has intentionally divided the Smiths audience into Marr or Morrissey factions,” said the band’s frontman last month in a statement on the new film, before concluding, with the sort of perspective and self-possession we’ve come to expect from him, that Marr “has devoted his entire life to killing Morrissey in whatever way available”.
The reality is that the guitarist has sought to ignore Morrissey as much as possible, and rather than divide the Smiths audience, he instead provides them with a refuge; last night’s show was somewhere to enjoy their songs free of baggage. It helps that Marr has grown into his role both as singer and frontman; it is difficult to imagine him having been bold enough to tackle the tender “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want” when he first pivoted to frontman, but it provided a moving, lighters-in-the-air moment last night.
Other Smiths tracks, like “How Soon Is Now?”, were a reminder of his genius as a guitarist; there is something deeply satisfying in hearing its iconic riff ring out across Manchester’s city centre. Marr releases a new solo album, The Age of Everything, in October, and the songs from it he plays here – particularly the spry, energetic “Spin” and “It’s Time” – suggest he is once again venturing into new territory.
For the people of Manchester who so revere him, though, his most important role is as custodian of The Smiths’ legacy. On last night’s evidence, the band’s light will never go out on his watch.
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