jmtd → log → Johnny Marr

Last night I saw Johnny Marr play at Newcastle University Student's Union. This is the first time I've been to a gig at the refurbished NUSU. I think the last gig I saw there was Nouvelle Vague in around 2007.

It was a great gig! The accoustics in the Union are pretty good. I seem to recall they've always been pretty good. It used to be very cheap, too, which is sadly no longer true. Johnny Marr is an eminently likeable character. He did a set with a fairly balanced mix of his solo work from across two albums, Smiths songs and a few other bits and pieces, including a surprise cover of "Crash" by the Primitives, which by a seeming coincidence I had re-discovered a few weeks ago and can't stop listening to.

The stand-out tracks for me were

• Speak Out Reach Out, from Playland
• Panic, by The Smiths (short but sweet, one of my favourite Smiths songs)
• New Town Velocity, From The Messenger
• Crash, by The Primitives

* Strikingly similar to Gary Numan's Metal. I think this must be intentional, because the guitar work at the end of the verses also sounds a lot like Numan's Complex, which is the track that immediately follows Metal on The Pleasure Principle. Speak Out Reach Out is a great song, and not just due to the similarity.)