Morrissey Tour November 2016 - Santa Barbara

November 5th, 2016

The Santa Barbara concert is the day after Irvine and my original intention is to wake up very early to drive there and queue. The problem is, I can't peel myself out of my comfy white hotel bed because I seem to be tired after not having much sleep for the past few nights. Frustrated with my own laziness, but succumbing to the allure of more rest, I awake a few times in the morning but don't actually get out of bed until around 10 a.m. Finally well rested, I feel strange and a bit nervous at the thought I won't arrive until just prior to doors at 5 p.m.; usually I'm there at least 12 hours before the venue opens.

About to hit the road sometime after noon, I stop to pick up a coconut milk latte and realize it is dazzlingly hot out. It's November but to this Canadian it feels like full-on summer and the thin purple cardigan I'm wearing may as well be a puffed-out parka. Strangely, it is not necessarily uncomfortable and the warmth spreading across my skin matches this strange contentment that's usually so foreign to me. The sky stretches infinitely with celestial azure and the silent and grey blah Novembers I am used to fall away from my mind. And don't even get me started on the palm trees, which mesmerize me with their long, lithe trunks and pretty grassy green leaves. I can't stop photographing the palms and feel quite embarrassed by how nerdy my fascination with them is - but, of course - we don't have many palm trees in Canada!

Road trips require music so I bring along the Morrissey Parlophone Singles album I bought in Manchester this summer (perhaps as hard to find in Canada as palm trees) and as we merge onto sprawling multi lane freeways, I discover that even on the weekend there are A LOT of cars trafficking about L.A. Walls of them, in fact. The two-hour drive is looking more like a three-hour drive and the promise of getting near the front of the audience is dwindling. We drive the full time save for a quick stop at a mall to freshen up and I am faced with a blitz of air-conditioning and the reminder of unwelcome seasonal stressors I'd rather forget for now (and always): yes, it's early November, but Christmas wreaths, jumbo-metallic bulbs, and fatso Santas have already infested the shopping centre. Jingle-bell tunes are blasting through the bustling busy foyer and this merely conjures my estrangement from my own childhood and the nauseating pressure on us to feel, or at least feign "merriness." I laugh a bit at the absurdity but cannot wait to get out of there and back on the highway.

The last stretch of the drive lets us see the California coast and sihlouetted surfers cresting frothy-capped waves. It's past 4 p.m... but we make it to a parking lot near the venue and there are loads of people slinking up the streets. The venue is a bit different in that, rather than being downtown, it seems to be flung into the middle of suburban streets lined with terracotta roofed houses. Already I see people face-painted with elaborate sugar skull makeup and brightly coloured Día de los Muertos headpieces. It's a mosaic of vibrant veils, flowers, and colours in honour of death and life: the rhythm goes round. Approaching the entrance, I quickly realize doors have already opened before the 5pm start time and as soon as we are wristbanded with fluorescent pink bracelets, I run up the sienna clay hill towards the bowl entrance. I start considering the possibility that I will probably end up further back than I expected, but there's no time to fret and I keep focused as I weave through people traipsing up the hill under waving rainbows of intricate swinging banners of papel picado. The folk art is beautiful and there is a Mariachi band wailing with rolling guitar chords to my left - but I will check that out later - I want to grab myself a good spot.

I rush past the overflowing beer line-ups and towards the stone entrance of the Santa Barbara bowl and, with no time to check out what's behind me, I dash over to the pit area - and I'm met with the glorious realization that the pit is not yet as busy as I expected. There are still spots in second row centre - and this feels like amazing luck. My eyes are wide with surprise at such fortune - until the man in front of me, who was resting, stands up and I see that he's extremely tall. Hmmm... I thirstily scan the rest of the pit and notice an empty stretch of space to my left that is actually on barrier, Boz's side; it is directly in front of the speakers but my view won't be obstructed there. I switch places and grow even more pleased with my position.

Santa Barbara view

Finally I take a look around me and see that the venue reminds me of a smaller version of the Hollywood Bowl - with levels carved out of the hill behind. As the sun slowly begins to lower in the sky, dancers dressed in bright skirts and scarves twirl on stage and towering skeletons cavort at the rear of the pit. This is a different response to death than the weeping funerary blacks, impending-doom anxiety, and dread-head luckless horror that had been reliably instilled in me throughout my youth from my mostly British-descent family. Well, we need to cling to something. On Day of the Dead, the departed are, of course, mourned, but they are also celebrated as death and life are eternally and seamlessly linked. "But there is no end..."

Dancers

The Mexican Institute of Sound plays a fierce set boasting a throbbing bass that punches you in the chest and the drummer looks like Dave Grohl's raggedy-coiffed long-lost Mexican hermano. It's electronic dance music meets traditional folk and the highlight might just be when a bad-ass Mexican girl in a ruffled hot pink skirt and black combat boots smashes the hell out of a Donald Trump piñata until ragged streams of paper and gold coin candies fly across the stage. The couple next to us admits they don't speak any Spanish - and a blonde woman, whose name I unfortunately cannot remember, tells me it will be her first time seeing Morrissey so close up. Her excitement is palpable and throughout the pre-show videos we shout-sing lyrics to "God Save The Queen" and "Looking For a Kiss" as Johnny Rotten and David Johansen snarl and sneer against the massive backdrop screen. Meanwhile, we are somehow inching slowly towards centre.

Smashing Thump - photo by @mischievousnose

Excitement mounts as thunderous howls and applause indicate for those uninitiated that after Lypsinka, Morrissey will take the stage. My heart - he walks out wearing a beautiful black suit with a white shirt and exquisite silver jewelry: skull necklaces and dangling rosaries - and he's a devastatingly good-looking man about Santa Barbara. The band is decked out in jet black jackets and their faces are painted black and white sugar-skulls - their hollowed-out dark eyes make them look a daunting bunch. Boz is the only one not sporting a dinner jacket, and instead is wearing a long black priest's robe and rosary. This will be a religious experience.  Do I have the words?  Description always seems to pale compared to what I actually see, feel, and hear - all I know - for lack of eloquence on my part - is that this is gonna be so bloody cool!

Photo by michaelxmoz on Instagram

"...And to you, I say, Happy Death Day!" Morrissey announces, before the band drives into "How Soon Is Now?" Pulsing lights and that familiar exhilarating crunch of the guitar riff send us into spheres of sensory rapture as I watch the dark, captivating silhouette Morrissey makes as he leans into the microphone stand. Then, his voice fills the air with the lyrics that saved our lives, and our ears are deeply blessed. Some monumental moments engrave themselves in a way that defies time.

A few songs in and Moz rattles a shimmering tambourine for the opening to "You're The One For Me Fatty" - this is the first time I get to hear this gem live and there's a bounce to the audience as we sing along. Then the whirling harpsichord of Ouija Board fills the night air and my eyes well up as this song reminds me of my precious black cat I lost to kidney disease this year. As always, a Morrissey concert lets so many emotions rise to the surface from the depths of the soul. Some hope and some despair.

Setlist for Morrissey in Santa Barbara, November 5, 2016 (via setlist FM because I can never remember the order of anything):

1. How Soon Is Now?
2. Alma Matters
3. Speedway
4. Ganglord
5. Jack The Ripper
6. Judy Is A Punk (Ramones' cover)
7. You're The One For Me Fatty
8. Ouija Board, Ouija Board
9. Kiss Me A Lot
10. Don't Make Fun Of Daddy's Voice
11. I Will See You In Far Off Places
12. The Bullfighter Dies
13. World Peace Is None Of Your Business
14. I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris
15. One Of Our Own
16. Suedehead
17. The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores
18. Everyday Is Like Sunday
19. First Of The Gang To Die

Encore:

What She Said

Photo by @mischievousnose

Photo by mozllie on Instagram

At one point a man in a poncho seemingly appears out of nowhere and flings his arms around Moz. At another, a woman with a sky-high lime-green mohawk is carried over the crowd clutching for Morrissey's hand. For Suedehead, Morrissey grasps a Mexican flag offered by an audience member and tucks it into his front jacket pocket. He also makes a witty lyric change that reminds me of one of my favourite quotes of his (the blank notebooks one from Australia last year) singing "it was just to see, just to see all the things you knew I'd written about you, Oh so many blank pages." "Everyday is Like Sunday" and "First of the Gang to Die" bring eclectic electric energy surges from the audience as daredevil limbs fling and fly from crowd surfers trying to get a touch to be cherished for life.

As the encore approaches, Morrissey and the band bow and "What She Said" is introduced as Moz remarks "I need a stiff drink and a hot bath, or a hot bath and a stiff bath."  The quote immediately reminds me of something Rims said in List of the Lost. We lean over the edge of the barrier and teeter partially suspended in the air as Moz comes over to our side of the stage; the hard metal digs into my ribs and I like the feeling - but the towering black speaker is in front of me and it's just so far to reach for a handshake. Right before the end of the song, Morrissey takes my new blonde friend's hand and holds it for a moment, and she beams with bliss from her first-ever handshake. I'm so pleased for her and grasp her hand after.

Matt's tribal drum thump for the Rubber Ring outro rings through the Bowl and Morrissey and the band are off-stage.

It was divine.

Santa Barbara, being near the ocean, has a crisp dampness to the air and in sweaty numbers we stagger out of the pit and spill onto the streets with a kiss from the night sky, so fulfilled and anticipating the next show in Irvine on the 9th.

And of course, I couldn't resist visiting a cat café in Hollywood between the shows...