HEAR HEAR. Sat night was my 2nd fav of the year though!
I liked what Morrissey said about playing the smaller venues in the XFM interview: that his music is so personal, people would probably prefer to hear it in an intimate venue. I don't feel comfortable with all the random people around me, when I'm having my "semi-religious experience" with Morrissey.
Also the problem with the arenas is that the audience is quite disunited, you don't get this feeling of being all together. Because of the acoustics you can't really hear the audience, even if people are doing the Morrissey chant at the back, you can't really hear it in the front and you can't hear the audience singing along.
In Palladium, when the public was applauding, I thought the ceiling would fall down, that's how loud it was and you could feel the energy going from the audience to Morrissey and back. In Arena it's getting lost on the way.
Morrissey is very dependant on the public response, if the audience does not show a complete adoration he just gets sulky. But that's what makes it such a great experience, when he is really happy, because it's so genuine and intense.
Great Morrissey show is not possible without the great adoring 100% committed audience.
The wast majority of the people who went to Palladium REALLY wanted to. They were either having all their friends and relatives calling and refreshing seetickets.com or payed horrendous prices on Ebay.
On the other hand, many who went to G-mex seemed to have the "why not" attitude. Smiths frontman, last gig at G-mex and so on.
People around me were fine, but some comments about the audience on the main page really shocked me.
Nonetheless, i would list it as my 3rd and 4th favourite gigs (out of 11 on this tour).
I think Morrissey was great and the set list was fantastic!
Rome is number 2 because of the whole trip experience and putting ROTT into context and meeting all the right people.
And Palladium is simply my favourite gig of all times of all artists. I don't think I felt such complete and utter happiness (for a long time) before or after.
(I'm just really bored here in a hotel room, as you can tell
)