Photos: Morrissey at the UC Irvine Bren Events Center
Staff Editor on
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Morrissey returned to the UC Irvine Bren Events Center for the first time in 16 years on Friday night, playing a set geared more toward diehard fans rather than merely doing a “greatest hits” dance. With some long-timers recalling his 1997 and 2000 dates in Irvine, this show included five songs from his most recent full-length “World Peace Is None of Your Business,” including the title track, “Istanbul,” “The Bullfighter Dies,” “Kiss Me a Lot” and “Oboe Concerto.” The concert began with a video montage and then a reading of a poem by Anne Sexton before Moz and band kicked it off with “Suedehead.” He sprinkled in some political commentary, a couple of Smiths songs (“Meat Is Murder” and “What She Said”) and closed the show with a one-song encore, a cover of the Ramones’ 40-year-old nugget “Judy Is a Punk.” Saying “ciao,” the 57-year-old singer then exited the stage.
Morrissey had another date at the Bren Center on Nov. 9.
Photos by Carl Pocket
[…] Morrissey not only showed up, but played an incredible set to hundreds of fans clad in Smiths gear. Not to be excluded were not so subtle political statements in the form of James Baldwin’s portrait covering the kick drum, the entire band wearing “Fuck Trump” shirts and intermittent banter and music sampling issues like police brutality and politics. It was the sort of honesty mixed with melancholy that Moz fans have come to expect, and he rewarded them with a 19-song set that included several songs (“There Is a Light That Never Goes Out,” “Alma Matter” and “How Soon Is Now” among them) that he did not perform last November in Irvine. […]