Morrissey a la Vegas

Last night Morrissey played at the Pearl in The Palms and it was the best concert I'd seen this past week. We (Kate and myself) saw Modest Mouse last Saturday and thought that was just an okay show, probably not helped by the fact that it took them 50 minutes to get on stage after Matt Costa played (and his set would have played better in a coffee shop - I like acoustic sets, but his opening just didn't set the tone for the night, nor did it help that most of the music while we waited for the live acts to come on was really boring). We also saw Sinead O Conner this past Wednesday and her set definitely was nowhere near as good as when saw her back in 1997, and I'm a huge Sinead O Conner fan and before seeing her on Wednesday (and listening to her newest album Theology didn't help either, the only one of hers that I haven't liked), I thought everything she's done was gold. I'd still say Sinead O Conner has many great albums beyond her first two, The Lion and the Cobra and I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, with Universal Mother, Faith and Courage, and her awesome covers album, Am I Not Your Girl? being particular favorites - such a beautiful voice.

Anyway, this was only the second time we saw Morrissey and we liked his show the first time we saw him a few years ago, although he only played for something like 50 minutes (but it was an outstanding 50 minutes). The first thing I noticed when Morrissey got on stage (only 25 minutes after the opening act) was that he's looking older (of course that's what's going to happen unless one goes the Kurt Cobain route and after all Morrissey is four years older than me and I'm ancient), but he's actually in good shape and his voice was in top form. This time Morrissey played for about an hour and forty minutes, played mostly Smiths songs, and just really put on an altogether great set. Morrissey fans are amongst the most obsessed fans you'll encounter, but not in a scary way, rather just a lot of love spread amongst a really interesting mix of people across a lot of different demographic / cultural lines. Towards the end of the show, several guys managed to get onstage to touch Morrissey (which he doesn't really discourage) even though there was a security guy present. Morrissey got the crowd worked up to an especially frenzied state when he played How Soon Is Now? and First In the Gang To Die, lots of love in the hall! This was the first time we'd been to the new Pearl at The Palms and it's even better than the House of Blues and definitely better than the Joint, great sound, and while we were in the standing room floor area, the seated areas looked really well designed. I also thought the opening singer, Kristeen Young, was good, being a kind of mix of Kate Bush and Regina Spector.

Back to my above digression on length of time before an artist gets on stage (either starting the show or time between acts): I don't think there's any good excuse for there to be more then thirty minutes between acts. Sure there's a lot of things that need to be fine tuned, but isn't there enough time before the concert starts to do this and really with as many shows as most artists put on, shouldn't they have this down to where they can do this within half an hour? If Rammstein can get their complex stage show (with pyrotechnics) to happen just thirty minutes after the previous act, how hard should it be for other acts to do the same with a lot less going on? I think I have a pretty high patience threshold, but after about forty minutes of just standing around waiting for the act to appear, a good portion of the audience is going to get increasingly unruly (especially as they consume more alcohol). I'm going to guess that if one is drinking a lot that you're less apt to notice the wait between acts, but it could be argued as to how much that person is really enjoying the show once it starts and those persons are more apt to not be considerate to others around them (or even the musicians on stage, just yelling or talking randomly during songs). I love going to live shows and go to a good number of them throughout the year, but I'd go to more if the more than thirty minutes between acts wasn't some kind of norm. Do others feel the same way and if not, how long do you think is acceptable between acts?