Dickie Felton | 17 December 2022 |
I must’ve been dead keen to attend Morrissey’s Chester Northgate Arena gig as my ticket number was 00023.
I got tickets via a landline rather than online a quarter of a century ago.
Morrissey played a sports hall in Cheshire this week in 1997.
For me and my pals this gig involved a hour’s train ride from home.
I was in work that morning but burst out at lunchtime to beat a path to Chester.
It was December. It was freezing. I wore a Morrissey teeshirt and denim jacket and froze myself silly.
The only respite from the cold was assorted boozers in Ye Olde Deva.
Me and mate McCully sampled several hostelries before arriving at one nearest to the venue.
There was a massive buzz ahead of this gig, heightened by the fact we were fairly sozzled come teatime.
It was only Morrissey’s second UK show that year having played Battersea Power Station the previous night.
All 1100 tickets were snapped up and there was a sense of welcoming Morrissey home after he had toured extensively in the US that year.
It had been almost three years since we’d last seen him several times on the 1995 Boxers Tour.
The pub beside the venue was a tremendous tribal gathering of quiffed-up fans.
The pub jukebox played Morrissey and The Smiths really loud.
There was much back-slapping among tour regulars who hadn’t seen each other for a few years or since the previous night at Battersea.
Moz promo pic 1997. Photo by Rankin
The Northgate Arena was better known for being a leisure centre rather than a live venue.
As kids we’d gone there occasionally to whoosh down waterslides and pit wits against a wave machine.
But this night it was all about seeing our idol surge once again.
The stage was set in the sports hall and couldn’t have been more of a contrast to the expanse of Battersea Power Station.
Morrissey came on and bizarrely announced “Good-bye Chester!” as the first song exploded into life.
”Do Your Best and Don’t Worry” was to be the opener and the first of four tracks played from “Southpaw Grammar”.
His latest album “Maladjusted” had been released that summer and he chose four songs from that at Chester – including a most moving version of “Trouble Loves Me”.
Oh joy of joys to see Morrissey perform Smiths tracks “Paint A Vulgar Picture” and for the encore “Shoplifters of the World Unite”.
He also played four songs from the epic “Vauxhall and I” during what was a relatively short set 14 songs.
Morrissey was chatty: “I’d like to say hello to the bruisers from Merseyside… I don’t know why…”
It was an odd one Chester. A Christmas knees-up in a small sports hall with Morrissey delving into his last three albums and playing nothing from “Viva Hate” “Bona Drag” or “Kill Uncle”.
Moz and band were in scintillating form. The crowd fairly frenzied and fawning at Morrissey’s feet in a tiny venue.
The show was over in just under an hour.
Morrissey was whisked away and probably home in Hale with his Horlicks before midnight.
We attended a post-gig disco upstairs before the last train back to Liverpool. The following day I penned a little review for the newspaper I worked for.
Obviously I eulogised about what I’d seen in what was my tenth Morrissey gig.
Ormskirk Advertiser 1997
I managed to rip the poster off a wall that night and have reproduced it. I’ve 25 copies to buy.
Grab yourself a bit of that baltic night when Morrissey rocked a Cheshire sports hall…
Here’s a sound recording of the gig for your audio enjoyment: