On their website, The Smyths explain that they are not a Smiths tribute band. Rather than don ornamental hearing aids and paisley shirts while flinging gladioli in mimicry, The Smyths are focused on evoking the atmosphere of a Smiths gig in the 1980s. Having played over 760 shows in nearly 20 years, it’s entirely possible that tonight’s sold-out crowd will witness the closest thing possible to a concert by the most influential British band of the last 40 years.
First up however is Fleeting Persuasion who deliver moody, polished mid-tempo guitar pop reminiscent of the music scene that birthed tonight’s headliners. Fronted by Melbourne singer-songwriter J M S Harrison, the band seem more interested in riff and vibe than hooks with songs spiralling out over mesmeric rhythms. It’s a confident move for a band not used to playing in venues this size – to intrigue and lure rather than fight for attention – and it’s one that largely pays off. When they close their set with forthcoming single Etched, the only shame is that the whole gig couldn’t have been accompanied by a low-fi, slow motion early 90s music video, perhaps one caught on Rage at 2am.
Blasting into their set with Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now, to wild screams of abandon from the crowd, arms, beers and phones aloft, singer Graham Sampson, dressed in black suit and with his spotted shirt unbuttoned to a few inches north of his navel, implores us, as he will do many times this evening, that he loves us dearly. “We got here as quick as the world would allow us,” he says, grasping at his heart before extending his hand toward us. What becomes immediately apparent, even more than the astonishing musicality of the band, is the way that music production has changed since The Smiths left a recording studio for the last time. The fidelity of the music that inspires us all to be here is exceeded in a way that lends the instruments a sense of size that seems appropriate, because it’s Max Watts in 2022, but is also definitely not the sound of an indie band in the 1980s.
William, It Was Really Nothing, Hand in Glove and Panic follow, each sounding louder, faster and more muscular than their original versions and each drawing a wildly impassioned response from the crowd. Guitarist Andy Munro does an astonishing interpretation of Johnny Marr’s guitar playing, managing to make the listener forget that there are at least a dozen other guitar parts (and often strings and synthesisers) augmenting his trickling melodies and slashing chords. Similarly, bassist Simon Hudson reminds you just how remarkable a player The Smiths’ Andy Rourke was. After an imaginative reinvention of There is a Light That Never Goes Out, the band break for an interval, “because we are old men,” Sampson jokes. The happily burbling crowd surge toward the bar, some guessing which songs we’re yet to hear, all seeming very glad they came.
Returning with The Queen is Dead, The Smyths’ seem refreshed, and Sampson’s voice is in fine form, eager to show us that his falsetto is indeed (quite possibly like yours) stronger than Morrissey’s. The joy of hearing someone even attempt to play these songs, let alone to do so with such skill and attention to detail, is a thrill for anyone with even a passing interest in The Smiths. While Reel Around the Fountain and Last Night I Dreamed That Somebody Loved Me are shorn of their subtleties by the band’s faster and harder approach, songs that can barely contain their own defiant wilfulness such as These Things Take Time, The Boy with the Thorn in His Side and This Charming Man, are triumphs. Sampson’s vigorous thesping suits the songs perfectly, and it never feels as though he is simply trying to be Morrissey, a prospect that has become increasingly fraught over the last decade. Pacing the stage, dropping to his knees, offering his microphone to the crowd to sing choruses and some of Morrissey’s choicest lines, there is so much love in the room that it feels there is no room for doubt.
“You can tell it’s a good gig because my whiff is destroyed,” Sampson tells the crowd. “I’ve been made over,” he smiles. Departing the stage to a blistering Bigmouth Strike Again and returning for an encore of Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want and How Soon is Now that, tribute band or not, provoked so much inarguable joy from the crowd The Smyths could only regard the night as a triumph.
