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