Morrissey conquers Manchester in a defiant, theatrical homecoming
- Paul Evans
- Jun 10
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 16
Co-Op live Arena, Manchester, 7th June 2025
WORDS / IMAGES PAUL EVANS
On a sultry Manchester evening, the Co‑op Live’s cavernous sold-out interior brims with anticipation as Morrissey, the city’s most polarising and enduring musical figure, returns to perform the biggest hometown solo concert of his career. It’s a return as grandiose as it is introspective. It’s a night steeped in theatrics, nostalgia and raw emotional power where Morrissey plunges into an impassioned set that spans decades, personas, moods and moments.
Iconic visuals of Bowie, Delon and kitchen-sink dramas flash by before lights dim and the spotlight hits centre stage. Morrissey appears, takes his stance and pauses, silent for the briefest heartbeat, then announces “My God, I’m here.” It’s an electrifying declaration. It isn’t merely a greeting. It’s a benediction, an affirmation of his presence in the very city that birthed and banished him, loved and loathed him in equal measure. It’s a momentous arrival.
All You Need Is Me, sets the tone with irony and swagger. Clutching a bunch of flowers, he waves them about with a theatrical flourish punctuating every lyric. The song, laced with self-aware disdain, has the crowd roaring along before the buoyant, cheeky classic You're the One for Me, Fatty has long-time fans grinning ear to ear.
What follows is seismic. A song whose spectral tremolo seems to shake the very steel of Co-op Live. The words “I am human and I need to be loved” seem existential and ache with the fervour of a man still grappling with solitude tonight. The crowd sing back every word, hands in the air with phones raised. It’s a spine-tingling moment and How Soon Is Now? is perfect except for the lack of three obvious things.
I Wish You Lonely’s plea for isolation is urgent and complex. Morrissey’s voice is weathered yet commanding and he finds new nuances in lines that once may have seemed bitter but now carry the weary gravitas of further lived experience. One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell and Black Cloud form a melancholic duo. The former's farewell sung like a warning, while the latter's stormy imagery rolls beneath stadium-sized riffs. At this point, the atmosphere begins to resemble not just a music concert, but a requiem for an era before I Ex-Love You offers a biting break-up anthem. Its melody deceptively upbeat against lyrics of romantic ruin. It stands as a bridge between past and present, binding his career-long themes into a single sardonic anthem. Montages of visuals amplify the drama, but these aren't just aesthetic choices. They are coded messages and references to an inner world of yearning, iconoclasm and cinematic despair.
Every day Is Like Sunday is nostalgic and tender eliciting an emotional response as the 23,500 crowd sing the chorus in unison, their voices swelling with bittersweet resignation. From here, the descent into emotional depths continues with the emotional and sparse I Know It's Over. A moment of sublime stillness sweeps the venue. "Oh mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head..." he sings and thousands stand breathless and moist eyed in the dimmed light. The quiet after the final note feels like a moment of collective mourning not only for the song, but for one of the greatest British bands.
The tone changes with a thrilling quartet of Life Is a Pigsty, Speedway, The Loop and Scandinavia rolling through Morrissey’s solo canon, rocking the arena with each visceral chord. Shoplifters of the World Unite brings a thunderous wave of nostalgia. The band, tight, brutal, relentless driving the energy up. As the set nears its close, we’re offered I Will See You in Far-Off Places and Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me as a near-spiritual benedictions. Each word ringing like an elegy as the arena, now shrouded in soft light, listens in reverent stillness.
Morrissey closes the night on his own terms with Irish Blood, English Heart. Defiant, proud and unyielding. It’s sung like an oath. A triumphant, bittersweet reclamation of identity. Arms are raised, the crowd roar, the message is clear: Morrissey is still here, still fighting, still unrepentant.
It’s been a setlist as rich as it is diverse, a night of visual and emotional tapestry and a crowd that will long remember the echo of “My God, I’m here.” Morrissey's return to Manchester has shown both theatrical brilliance and vulnerability in equal measure.
The show has been more than a gig, it’s been theatre, liturgy, confrontation and confession. From flowers to gothic silhouettes, from kitchen-sink pathos to post-punk swagger, Morrissey has crafted a performance that was wholly Morrissey: complex, confounding and utterly unforgettable.
Despite controversies and media narratives, Manchester has embraced Morrissey tonight. It feels like vindication, an artistic and personal homecoming This wasn’t merely his biggest solo show in Manchester, it may have also been his best.
SETLIST
1/ All You Need Is Me
2/ You're the One for Me, Fatty
3/ How Soon Is Now?
4/ I Wish You Lonely
5/ Rebels Without Applause
6/ Sure Enough, the Telephone Rings
7/ One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell
8/ Black Cloud
9/ I Ex-Love You
10/ Bonfire of Teenagers
11/ Every day Is Like Sunday
12/ I Know It's Over
13/ Life Is a Pigsty
14/ Speedway
15/ The Loop
16/ Scandinavia
17/ Shoplifters of the World Unite
18/ Jack the Ripper
19/ I Will See You in Far-Off Places
20/ Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me
21/ Irish Blood, English Heart
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