Morrissey adjusts to 'Tuckson'

Karen C. Tully Arizona Daily Wildcat Morrissey dances in front of a Tucson crowd at Gotham nightclub Thursday night. The show was Morrissey's first in Tucson and featured the Smoking Popes as the opening act.

When I was growing up, all the girls who loved Morrissey also fell for all the sexually ambiguous boys. All the boys who loved Morrissey were geeks.

10 years later, the boys turned out better.

They were all there last Thursday, at Gotham/The New West, for the first ever Morrissey show in Tucson (or Tuckson as Our Man called it). There's just something kind of sad about 20-something girls still carrying lunch boxes for purses. The geeks who love d the Smiths now have cute, smart, well-adjusted girlfriends. Or at least that's what my Boy Companion noted.

Simon Cutts, UA graduate and a Morrissey fan from waaaaay back, exclaimed "I'm one big goose bump!" His girlfriend, Wendy Qualls, also a UA grad, explained that they had journeyed from a Phoenix suburb to see the Moz in a bar setting rather than the big o l' State Fair Coliseum. She was also afraid to go to the front of the stage with her boyfriend, for fear that he would be "a big freak."

He was. They all were. Flowers were flying. Morrissey was flinging himself all over the stage. And it was good.

Opening with "Boy Racer" from the Southpaw Grammar compact disc, Morrissey seemed intent on being anything other than a nostalgia act. The entire set consisted of material from his last three albums, with one important exception (hang on, we'll get there) . "Alma Matters," from the latest album, Maladjusted, was a bouncy rendition of the radio-friendly single.

The last couple of albums have worked for an anti-Johnny-Marr-guitar effect, and the concert versions relied heavily on the blazing guitar sounds. "The More You Ignore Me (The Closer I Get)," introduced as "one of our many American hits," featured a very twangy guitar. "Hold on to Your Friends" went the other way with the American guitar sound, ending with a white-boy-blues solo.

Morrissey shows are notoriously short, and this one was no different, lasting a whole 55 minutes, by my count. But oh, man, did it end well. After a short, teasing silence, the band roared into what could only be ... no, it can't be ... yes, it is! "Shopl ifters of the World," a rarely, if ever, performed Smiths song sent the flower-clutching crowd into a frenzy. It was a fast 'n' dirty version, an entirely different animal than the one you know from your high school mix tapes. It rocked.

Also rockin' was the opening band, the Smoking Popes. Masters of the 2:30-of-straight-ahead-pop technique, the Popes loped through their half-hour (what is up with that?) opening slot.

Word has it that they got the opening gig because Morrissey declared them his favorite new band. Lead singer Josh Caterer returned the favor by adopting some of Morrissey's famous vocal ticks. Boy Companion noted that now he sounds like the deranged love child of Moz and the Johns from They Might Be Giants. Their new album, Destination Failure, is en route from their publicist but, judging by the concert versions, it sounds to be as engaging as their last, Born to Quit.

The one good thing about the freakishly short sets was that it left plenty of time for drinking and dancing after the show. Gotham/The New West/Screwy Louie's is/are housed in what, once upon a time, was the Southwest's largest bowling alley, way up on In a Road near the freeway. Since then it's been a succession of country and sports bars. Now, the alternative scene is popular enough to warrant their own nook in this gaping cavern of entertainment. Gotham tries very, very hard to be post-industrial hip. I t almost works. There are faux-granite walls, chain-link platforms for dancing, rough metal tables. And there's music. Turn on your local alternative station; that's the stuff. Not the saddest place in the world. Also not the coolest. About what you'd exp ect for "Tuckson."