THE ROOM WENT DARK and a droning voice filled the empty stage ... Auschwitz ... Kent State ... Tiananmen Square. Red spotlights bounced off microphone stands and a drum set complete with four-foot gong. There was no opening act. The show started half an hour early because the band had to drive all night to Omaha. The crowd teemed with women who looked like junior high teachers wearing threadbare concert T-shirts, bald guys punching the air in anticipation. Killing Fields ... Berlin Wall ... Khmer Rouge.

We were in the wrong place. We were supposed to meet Hari, who had saved us $45 each by slipping us in through the side entrance. "Let's just wait for him to run out," my friend Dave said. "When do you think that'll be?" I asked. "I don't know. If they're going to list all the world's atrocities, it's gonna be a long night."

At age 16, I fell in love with a boy because I thought he looked like Luke Perry. That's when I first heard of Morrissey, when most people had already dismissed him as the former Smiths frontman who would never do anything better than How Soon Is Now. I'd heard that people throw flowers. I wondered if he'd simply appear out of nowhere, in a puff of smoke, like David Copperfield.

Suddenly, a blinding white flash, and there he was, jogging a few steps, almost skipping, in tight brown trousers, black shirt, tie. The crowd roared despite the visible swell of his 47-year-old gut and the salt in his pompadour.

We made our way down to the floor after the first song and found a spot behind a skinny guy in acid-washed jeans with his T-shirt tucked in, his long limbs waving like noodles as his girlfriend rocked from side to side like a three-year-old just learning to dance. These were Morrissey fans. Not throwback Smiths fans. These were connoisseurs.

On stage: a bass player, a drummer, two guitarists, and a Jack-of-all-instruments who played the keyboards and a trumpet, all of them dressed in the same uniform of white shirt, black pants. Behind them, side-by-side projections of James Dean's profile, cock-eyed and hunching. The lights popped in violent bursts as Moz removed his tie. His shirt was unbuttoned so stealthily that it seemed to come off on its own. Then he stood before us, bare-chested, posing like a teenager singing into his brush in front of the bathroom mirror. Something surprising happened. My heart raced a little.

Jutting offstage again, he reemerged in a pale pink button-up. As I moved on to my second Newcastle, Hari said, "I bet he smells good." She said the band was very polite. They were prompt with their hellos, pleases, thank yous. But there had been conditions: no meat products on the premises for 24 hours before the show. So much as a Slim Jim wrapper and Moz would've left even earlier for Omaha.

His new shirt started to show signs of heat. Wet rings under his arms, an inverted teardrop between his shoulder blades. He joked about keeling over from the altitude. He gave a shout-out to some guy from Aurora. Does he know where Aurora is? I thought. Does he know that in Aurora, his music gets about as much airtime as Liberace? Maybe he does. Maybe this nice English boy knows perfectly the loneliness of being the only kid in town who loves the New York Dolls. There are some lights that never go out.

When I closed my eyes, it was as if no time had passed at all. Looking up, I saw his shadow lingering between the two James Deans, his torso twisting provocatively. The thorn was still in his side. Meat was still murder. The band struck a long note, followed by a lagging swing beat, building the crescendo until we all seemed to be calling together, led by our Manchester messiah, yearning for the DJ to be hanged and the disco incinerated.

He writhed around the stage, pranced along the edge, leaned in close to blow kisses, looked out from the center of a tambourine. He told us he loved us. He took it back. Suddenly his shirt was off again, tossed into the front row.

I looked around and noticed that I was among the youngest people there. "We've crossed a threshold," I said. The performers we remember from our youth are no longer drawing sell-out crowds, replaced by today's next big things.

On the other hand, who is Morrissey but a darker, more socially-conscious Elvis? These must be his sweaty Vegas jumpsuit days.


Morrissey played the Fillmore Auditorium in Denver on May 9, 2007. He opened with The Queen Is Dead and closed with You're Gonna Need Someone On Your Side.


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