Morrissey publishes the personal ranking of his best live
It is not a musical magazine or the sector printing to support him, but directly he: Morrissey shared on social media a list of the best evenings of his last European tour, and the ranking, as always in his style, never accommodating, surprises, excludes and consecrates. The dry and definitive title “The Best Nights of the Tour” is already a whole program: The selection collects the twelve stages that according to the British artist have represented the emotional and artistic peak of its recent live performances. To lead the list there is, surprisingly, Ostuni, followed by Rome and Manchester.
Italy, with three cities in the top 6 (Ostuni, Rome and Lucca), is confirmed as one of the hottest homelands for the former Smith leaders. This ranking represents a further real gesture of reconciliation with a country that, until recently, seemed to have definitively excluded from its plans. The reason for that distance dates back to 2017, when Morrissey had made it clear that he would never return to Italy again, following an unpleasant episode with the Roman police. An altercation that would have deeply marked the artist and fueled the belief that Italy was no longer a “safe” place for him. But now everything has changed: Moz has been the protagonist of six dates in our country.
Returning to the ranking: Morrissey does not directly motivate his choices, but certainly in his idea of “best” they not only count the technical quality or the size of the venues. They weigh the heat of the public, the intensity, the instant connection between the stage and the audience, its way of approaching the performance. In this sense, the presence at the top of Ostuni is significant: perhaps his intimacy and the out of the way of the local public have hit the artist more of crowded arenas and consolidated capital. Among the other awarded cities, Krakow and Cologne are distinguished, testifying to the strong bond that Morrissey maintains with central Europe, and four stages in Germany (colony, Berlin, Monaco, Leipzig), which demonstrate a constant welcome in German -speaking countries.
Manchester also stands out, the only British date in Top 3: a return home, which confirms how, despite controversy, silences and distances, the hometown of Morrissey remains an identity stage. They close the Glasgow list (second evening, it is specified), Copenhagen and Paris, capitals of live music that the singer has visited at different times of his career and which, also on this tour, have left their mark, but not enough, so much so that they ended at the bottom of the ranking. As always with Morrissey, even a simple list turns into a declaration of intent, into an emotional map, into a mocking smile, into a provocation.
