Johnny Marr live in Manchester: a stirring homecoming for one of the city’s proudest sons

“As a Mancunian boy, being invited to be the first rock show at this place is really a super privilege. We’re all part of history and I’m glad to be here to do it.”

These are the words that Johnny Marr uses to greet an adoring crowd at Manchester’s Aviva Studios, the sparkling new 2000 capacity space at the heart of the multi-million-pound new arts complex Factory International, and there is no doubting his sincerity. Few, if any, living artists embody the artistic spirit of the city quite like Marr.

With the stage set, he launches into ‘New Town Velocity’, a truly astounding moment in his solo catalogue, a paean to the headrush of teenage wonder and days of dreaming your way out of a humdrum reality. Marr’s twinkling, intricate guitar lines evoke the same nostalgia for our lost childhoods as gauzy photos and videos are projected on the backdrop. White, spidery spotlights dazzle and dart around the room, and, as if the emotional stakes needed any raising, the song is elegantly enhanced by the assembled 30-piece orchestra that join Marr and band on stage. The musicians, from across the North of England, had been chosen by Marr and conductor Fiona Brice for the occasion, and their arrangements are largely restrained and unobtrusive, adding depth without cloying the air with sentimentality.

At the end of the track, a moment of silence falls, the lights drop low and a lone cry of “Johnny Fucking Marr!” rings around the room. Brice’s baton rises, and with one swoosh, Bernard Herrmann-like strains of strings mimic the iconic opening chords of ‘How Soon is Now?’ and Aviva Studios erupts. The full flex of the venue’s state-of-the-art lights becomes apparent, and Marr delves deep to replicate the longing and pain of the song’s lonely refrain: “I am human, and I need to be loved”.

Songs from Marr’s four solo albums over the last decade dominate the set, but inevitably it is the choice cuts from the past that rouse the crowd most effectively. Staccato strings on Electronic’s ‘Get the Message’ expand on the original’s synth keys, while on an exquisite ‘Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want’, low, silvery lights bask the room in a plaintive, moonlit reflection and elegant strings stand in for Marr’s original mandolins.

“We wrote this song about 400 yards from here at a place called the Hacienda,” Marr says as he introduces the final track of the main set, ‘Getting Away with It’. He takes the time to namecheck Bernard Sumner and Neil Tennant and, willingly or unwillingly, draws attention to the names that he does not mention at any point.

It’s a testament, however, to the immortal, life-changing resonance of the work of his first band, that, despite all of the elephant-in-the-room baggage, it is two Smiths songs that Marr turns to for his encore. A stomping ‘Panic’ is followed by a full-throated, emotionally cathartic singalong to ‘There is a Light That Never Goes Out’ and the curtain falls at Aviva Studios for the first time.

Countless artists will strut their stuff on this newest of Manchester stages over the coming years – Underworld and Adrianne Lenker are among those booked in – but Johnny Marr has something virtually irreplaceable: the hard-earned respect and undying love of this proudest of music cities.

Johnny Marr played:

‘Armatopia’
‘Day In Day Out’
‘New Town Velocity’
‘How Soon Is Now?’
‘Get the Message’
‘Rubicon’
‘Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me’
‘Hi Hello’
‘Somewhere’
‘Spiral Cities’
‘Walk Into the Sea
‘Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want’
‘Easy Money’
‘Getting Away With It’
‘Panic’
‘There Is a Light That Never Goes Out’

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