It’s a peculiar sight to behold: there’s a middle-aged man flouncing and stomping around the stage at the Apollo in Hammersmith, west London, and even though he has 5,000 people hanging on his every word, they’re still not entirely sure they can believe anything he says. "There’s absolutely no way we generate any interest from the record labels in the United Kingdom," announced Morrissey last week. "Therefore, the imminent two nights at Hammersmith are likely to be our final shows in the UK."
Not everyone’s convinced. We’ve been here before. There was a seven-year search for a record label between 1997’s Maladjusted and 2004’s You Are the Quarry, eventually released on Sanctuary’s imprint, Attack. Another seven years on and Morrissey, without a deal again, claimed he "didn’t expect to live long enough to experience an offer from a grown-up label." In 2012, he said he’d retire in two years; by 2014, he’d signed with Harvest.
In some ways, this is what it means to be a Morrissey fan in 2015: always carrying a spare pinch of salt in your back pocket. "I don’t know if what he says is necessarily true," says Moxy, a 30-year-old fan originally from the U.S. "Morrissey is famous for stoking fires." Others are similarly unconvinced. "I don’t think it’s true in the slightest," says 39-year-old Mark. "I think he’s pissed off he hasn’t got a label, but we’ll probably see him play live again." Some aren’t giving it any credence whatsoever. "He’s a bit of a moody old git, isn’t he?" says 43-year-old Harry with a shrug.
Morrissey, meanwhile, isn’t overly fussed with convincing the non-believers. When the lights dim, he marches up to the microphone and begins an acapella rendition of Willie Nelson’s "Always on My Mind". "If I made you feel second best/ I’m sorry I was blind," he sings, and it seems poised to blossom into a grandiose farewell gesture until he cuts it short. "That’s it," he declares after just two lines, sloping off, and the thread’s left there, never to be picked up again.
So begins an evening of strange second-guessing, in which you’re constantly looking for clues that he really does mean it. An early romp through "Suedehead" feels bittersweet as he grabs flailing hands in the front row and then stretches out the "Oh, it was a good lay" coda for just a touch longer than normal, as if this grand old song’s finally being laid to rest after all these years. And the grinding, punch-drunk "Speedway" that follows feels like a defiant last stand, too, as Morrissey reels on the cusp of defeat and brags, "And if you try to break my spirit, it won’t work/ Because there’s nothing left to break." But then he throws in an almighty curveball: just as it’s about to reach its juddering climax, there’s a long pause, darkness shrouds the stage, and when the lights are back up… Morrissey’s somewhere near the back with a tambourine, while one of his band closes the song by singing in Spanish. You think you’ve found a breadcrumb, and it’s quickly brushed away.
Only once does Morrissey reference that tonight is meant to be a final bow, and that’s during the one-song encore. Instead, on a night where every throwaway comment seems loaded with meaning and every song choice heavy with significance, he teases out the uncertainty. If retirement is the elephant in the room, then he’s happy to give it the occasional slap on the trunk, just to remind everyone it’s there. "I’ve said this for the last few nights but I shall say it again," he announces, as if readying a heartfelt speech. "The pain… in Spain… is mainly for the bull." Then he’s off, into the flamenco guitar flourish of "The Bullfighter Dies". Like much of tonight’s set, it’s a cut from 2014’s World Peace Is None of Your Business, and the preference for recent material rather than some greatest hits jamboree feels strange, too. "I understand there was a lot of new stuff, because he wants to finish in a ‘I’m still relevant way,’" says Brad, 46. "But I’d have liked more of the older stuff, because he was so impactful for me at a young age."
People like Brad are who come to mind when you think of the cult of Morrissey: those legions of slightly beery men who, despite not wafting around in billowy shirts unbuttoned to the navel and swinging gladioli, latched onto his rejection of masculinity’s boorish mores. "Morrissey taught us to be a feeling, emotional New Man," says Brad. "Before, everybody was a full-on fucking football fan. There was no room for poets, people who had feelings or emotions, especially young men. Everyone thought he was depressing, that you were a miserable twat for listening to it, but it was the most optimistic, heartfelt thing you could hear."
But there’s a younger generation, too, who’ve taken to him just as fiercely. Steve and Paul, in their mid-to-late twenties, came from Scotland to pay tribute. "We’re not old enough to have seen the Smiths, but they’re our favorite band," says Paul. Ruby, 17, says that everyone in her school loves Morrissey and that her family have "three copies of Autobiography at home just in case something happens to one of them." Harry, meanwhile, is with his 15-year-old son Alfie; they’ve been going to see Morrissey together ever since Alfie would sit on his dad’s shoulders at gigs. "Most modern stuff is rubbish," says Alfie. "Morrissey is a good outlet."
It makes you wonder why Morrissey hankers so much for a record label. A young audience happy enough to pay £65 ($100) for a show centered around a new album rather than sheer nostalgia would surely be savvy enough, too, to ensure the success of a crowdsourced album. Earlier this year, he dismissed Kickstarter as "desperate and insulting," but his relationship with labels hasn’t been just one-sided mistrust. His bad-spirited break-up with Harvest, in which he accused them of botching the release of World Peace… and subsequently took to wearing a FUCK HARVEST t-shirt in public, is likely to be an obstacle to finding a new home. And yet there’s a particularly memorable snippet from Autobiography in which Morrissey, vexed by another testing meeting with the Smiths’ old Rough Trade boss Geoff Travis, concludes: "I glance around his office searching for an axe. Some murders are well worth their prison sentence." Later, appalled at Sanctuary for befouling the cover of You Are the Quarry with a typo, he laments: "It’s enough to make Van Gogh want to cut off both ears." Maybe being free of the traditional release model would suit him.
When I spoke to Mozipedia author Simon Goddard for NME last year, he suggested that record labels appealed to the pop historian in Morrissey. "He is a romantic and a purist," he said. "He needs his art to be given the official kite-mark of historic quality and distinction." Mark thinks it appeals to bygone times, too, but in a slightly different way. "You Are the Quarry went multi-platinum and is probably his biggest ever album," he says. "It had a lot of promotion and marketing behind it, and he’s never really got that since. That’s probably what he aspires to." But perhaps it’s even simpler than that. "I think this [stance] could just be a moment of disgust, where he says ‘I’m not appreciated’ so he bows out," says fan Moxy. In other words: he’s human and he needs to be loved, even if those relationships often come unstuck.
Whatever he decides to do next, tonight still feels like a triumph. The old glories continue to be glorious. "Let the Right One In" is still silky and sinewy, elevated by Morrissey punching the air like a rock-’em-sock-’em robot as he pouts "I will advise/ Until my mouth dries"; "Ganglord" is a sinister, scary thud of scraping guitars, in which the police take on the guise of a dystopian, uniformed nightmare; and "Now My Heart Is Full" takes the grubby gangsters of Graham Greene’s novel Brighton Rock and turns them into the heroes of a soaring, swooping lament.
And still, Morrissey flits between career-closing ham and perpetual fly in the ointment. "Everyday Is Like Sunday" feels more than ever like a national sing-along treasure inspired by insipid seaside holidays, made even more joyful by him cackling like a pantomime dame and then repeatedly yelling, "I love you" during the outro. But "Meat Is Murder" reaches new harrowing levels with its screeching, pounding guitars that come on like the grisliest of horror scores. Behind the band there’s video footage of terrified animals being slaughtered, and by the end Morrissey’s on all fours with his face slumped near the bass drum, as if he’s so sickened he’s throwing up. Carnivores fidget uncomfortably; it’s not the cheeriest of partings.
"Our UK days conclude, but there’s no need for me to say goodbye," declares Morrissey, at last, when he re-appears for "The Queen Is Dead". "We will be close for the rest of our days." Even if you don’t think this is the last time, it still hurts to see him go. He’s stubborn enough, after all, to dig his heels in and not be back for quite some time. "Has the world changed or have I changed?" he sings. In here, it’s just the same—but the world outside might need a little longer to come round.