“Shouldn’t you be doing the dishes, or something really useful?” That’s a question Morrissey asks drolly at the end of a new trailer (via Slicing Up Eyeballs) for Morrissey 25: Live, an upcoming concert movie recorded at Moz’s March 2 concert at the Hollywood High School auditorium in Los Angeles. The former Smiths singer’s obsessive fans already know their answer, and fittingly, the clip is as much a tribute to their fervent expressions of devotion — tattoos, flags, desperate attempts to climb onstage — as the man who inspires such adoration.
But of course, there’s music, too. Moz can be heard singing “Speedway,” the mordantly self-deprecating closer from 1994 solo album Vauxhall and I, and the Smiths’ brilliantly urgent, sexually conflicted “Still Ill,” originally on the iconic U.K. band’s 1984 self-titled debut. “Speedway” is the song that coined the name of Morrissey’s semi-official fanzine, True to You, so it’s a significant choice.
Morrissey Live: 25 arrives in Morrissey’s 25th year as a solo artist, and it’s the singer’s first official concert DVD since 2005’s Who Put the ‘M’ in Manchester? The movie will be available to theaters on August 29 via theatrical distributor SpectiCast and will also come to DVD via Eagle Rock Entertainment, according to Slicing Up Eyeballs. The trailer directs viewers to the film’s website, which doesn’t appear to be online yet.
The Hollywood High show was part of a tour dogged by health scares and came after Morrissey played a concert billed as meat-free at the much larger Staples Center, also in Los Angeles. This spring, the singer reissued 1991’s Kill Uncle, a widely misunderstood solo album that was nevertheless not his best, and Rick Roll’d the public with an accompanying single. Morrissey will be touring South America next month.
