It’s been a few years since the Pope of Mope has graced the District with his presence—four three to be exact—and in the meantime, many of us have managed to see him play in other nearby locales. As a matter of fact, a few DCist staffers caught the Moz’s Halloween show in Baltimore, at the relatively intimate Ram’s Head Live—a date that was rescheduled due to Morrissey’s string of cancellations this past July. While there’s nothing quite like the Mozzer playing your hometown, we couldn’t help but feel a bit skeptical going into this past Friday’s gig at DAR Constitution Hall. You’ve all heard us gripe about DAR before, so we won’t bore you with our specific complaints this time around. We’ll just say this: given that half the fun of a Morrissey show is seeing his obsessively devoted fans scramble to make contact with the man, a nearly 4,000 capacity seated hall didn’t exactly seem like the ideal venue. Add to this the fact that Live Nation had to drop the ticket price not once but twice—still failing to fill more than 2/3 of the enormous hall—and you can probably imagine why we found ourselves feeling a little less than enthused.

Photos by Kyle Gustafson

As it turns out, we were right about the venue but couldn’t have been more wrong about the show. Morrissey’s Friday night set eclipsed the Baltimore date in just about every way possible—the setlist, the sound, the energy in the room, Morrissey’s demeanor toward the crowd. Though it took considerably more time for the crowd to work itself into a frenzy at DAR, Friday night’s devoted flock eventually proved itself more than worthy. Truth be told, the real hero here is you, D.C. area Morrissey fans. We’re sorry that we ever doubted you.

In case this was your first Morrissey show, there’s one thing that you probably picked up on rather quickly: the man knows how to make an entrance. In the minutes leading up to the headlining set, a series of video clips projected against the stage’s white backdrop kept the crowd from getting too restless. The clips were more than appropriate for the occasion; a bizarre Sacha Distel music video kept the neophytes entertained while knowing nods were delivered to Morrissey historians in the form of a New York Dolls performance on a German television show and screen tests from East of Eden. At last, the white backdrop dropped, revealing a massive triptych of a young Richard Burton, drink in hand (truly the last of the famous international playboys). As can be expected, Morrissey came out with guns blazing, opening up with the one-two-punch of Smith’s classic “Stop Me if You Think You’ve Heard This One Before” backed by recent solo hit “Irish Blood, English Heart”. As fans have come to expect, the schoolboy outfit-clad band was spot on, working meticulously to recreate the Smiths’ studio prowess on the former track while unleashing a roaring wall of guitars on the latter. Meanwhile, the man of the hour strutted the stage in a black shirt and grey slacks, silhouetted against the stage’s darkness by a single spotlight. Morrissey might have aged a bit during the past few decades (though he looks fantastic for his age) but his voice is still as rich and powerful as ever.

With Morrissey being just a stone’s throw from the White House at DAR, one might have expected the outspoken (if not inflammatory) singer to unleash a bit of vitriol between songs. On Friday, however, he seemed les talkative than usual and stopped short of wishing for the President’s demise. Instead, he briefly implored the assembled fans to do their civic duty during the 2009 2008 election year. “At last, we can all be rid of Mr. Nasty,” he said. “Vote with caution, because it affects not just you but the whole world.”

While Morrissey may have failed to deliver in terms of political provocation, he more than made good musically. The slinky “Stretch Out and Wait” sounded nearly note-perfect, the reverb-laden guitars perfectly mimicking the original’s resonant production. “Will the world end in the daytime?/I really don’t know,” Morrissey asked rhetorically before Matt Walker capped off the song with a hit to the giant gong behind him. New song “I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris” was also rewarding, belying its age with a fantastically dated-sounding keyboard hook.

During a performance of the uncharacteristically sexually frank “Dear God Please Help Me,” Morrissey tore off his shirt for the first time (three times is de rigueur for a Moz gig) and tossed it into the front row. Set against a purple backdrop and illuminated by a yellow spotlight, Morrissey stood stripped to the waist, baring his pasty English body for all to see as he sang the refrain “But the heart feels free”. It was at this moment—which found Morrissey in his most emotionally (and literally) naked state of the night—that a girl in a green track jacket ran on stage, wrapped her arms around Morrissey and planted a kiss on his cheek. Naturally, she was quickly apprehended by security and escorted offstage, as Morrissey called out “Is that all?” Girl in the green track jacket, if you’re somewhere out there reading this, we here at DCist would like to salute you for your impeccable sense of timing.

With the boundary between audience and performer breached, the front row fans suddenly found themselves emboldened. The trademark tremolo guitar opening of “How Soon is Now?”—arguably the band’s biggest hit—was the only excuse that a few more “stage invaders” (as they’re referred to in Morrissey fan circles) needed to bound onstage for a chance to graze the Moz. Again, blinding lights flashed in time with the song’s oscillating guitar figure, before giving way to an extended outro wherein Matt Walker struck a giant timpani drum like a taiko player. Oh, and Morrissey disrobed and threw his shirt into the rabid audience yet again.

For the encore, the band reassembled onstage and took a group bow before launching into the poppy number, “First of the Gang to Die”. Seeing this as possibly their final chance, scores of invaders scrambled onstage—so many that the security personnel were instantly overwhelmed. Morrissey had to stop singing the song amid the crush of fans and there were more successful embraces than we could count. Still, judging by the grin on his face, Moz was loving every minute of it. At the song’s close, Morrissey pulled off his “Je Suis Morrissey” t-shirt and threw it into the crowd. As a consolation to the few thousand of us who didn’t catch the relic, a shirt bearing the same design could be had for $35 at the merchandise booth.

While Friday night’s gig was not quite perfect—it lacked in material from Morrissey’s most recent release and where was the love for the early solo singles and Viva Hate?—it was still undoubtedly one of the most memorable shows that we’ve seen all year. Sure, Morrissey’s energy has flagged a bit in recent years but on Friday night, he proved that he’s still a force to be reckoned with, even if he doesn’t writhe around on the stage quite as much as he used to. Morrissey might trade in unrequited pining but you wouldn't know it from his live show: the man clearly knows how to give an audience exactly what they want.