I was talking to a friend of mine and he was on his way to see Primal Scream at Brixton Academy. He didn't look too excited at the prospect.
"I guess it's like supporting a football team", he said. "You just keep going because it's what you always do".
It's that kind of thinking that got me to Wembley on Friday to see my third Morrissey concert of the year. I bought two tickets for a little over £3 from an amateur tout on eBay. I couldn't give the extra ticket away. Nobody wanted to spend a night with me and Morrissey in an aircraft hangar in NW London. Everybody near the venue seemed to already have a ticket and in the end I sold it to a tout for £2. He thought he'd done me but really.I was 65pence up.
There was a lot of space in the standing area and even more in the seats at the back. If you'd been sitting back there you could've literally had a whole block to yourself. I'd seen smiling Tory boy David Cameron and his gang at the tube station. He'd probably be sitting at the back. Maybe they cordoned it off for him.
Morrissey had a selection of videos playing on a giant screen before he came on - Vince Taylor twisting, Sacha Distel, a drag act singing the 12 days of Christmas - he probably downloaded the selection himself off youtube. It worked well. The New York Dolls rocked on a hairy German TV show. Then the mood was killed by a silent 5 minute clip of James Dean wardrobe tests.
The set was better than earlier in the year, a little more dynamic and little less of the dead horse flogging of the recent dull LP. I stood behind two very short, quiffed dykes. (A common sub-sect in a Morrissey crowd). They were great. I could easily see over their heads and they pushed and elbowed anybody who got in front of them. And they poured a drink over the head of a guy who lit a cigarette right by us. I recommend unwitting lesbian bodyguards to any slightly tired middle-aged gig-goer.
And then it ended. It was pretty good overall. The Bona Drag rattle and Vauxhall and I rosette put away for another year, the entire night costing not much more than £6. It was just like the 1980s had never ended.
