"He's not playing any Smiths songs" says a disappointed and, it has to be said, rather drunk gentleman clinging onto the bar. "I was hoping that Noel would get up and do something but I suppose he's got a lot on his mind at the moment."
It was inevitable really. Johnny Marr and his new band The Healers are making their London live debut tonight and many in the audience –not just unsteady Eddie at the bar- are here in the hope that he will play some of the old stuff, or that some of his famous mates will get up on stage and join him.
In the mid to late eighties Marr was a linchpin of The Smiths, he and his mate Morrissey making some of the most memorable rock music in decades. Marr's sparkling, innovative guitar playing and cool good looks were the perfect accompaniment to Mozzer's bookish sensitivity, bedsit lyrics and Oscar Wilde-like wit.
Since The Smiths' bitter demise Marr has worked with New Order's Bernard Sumner as Electronic and was Matt Johnson's right-hand man for two The The albums –'Mind Bomb' and 'Dusk'. But until now the man hailed as British rock's great guitar hope has never gone solo or fronted his own band.
So why is he doing it now, a good thirteen years since the split of one of Britain's greatest combos? Did he not have the confidence to go it alone before? Or is he just doing it now to prove that he can?
Whatever the reason, Marr delivers a no-nonsense performance tonight, with a band that includes Ringo Starr's son Zak Starkey on drums and former Kula Shaker bass player Alonza Bevan.
Before a simple, psychedelic, lava lamp backdrop, Marr and The Healers dish up sinewy rock'n'roll, laden with huge power chords and fat, fluid basslines. Marr's trademark chiming guitar sounds are conspicuous by their absence, while his vocals are workmanlike and without a great deal of range. There is no between song banter and no song titles are announced.
Rather than the blues rock that the band's name suggests, these are strident rock stompers, sounding like The Cult or Oasis –Marr's mucker Liam is in the audience sporting his John Lennon cap and shades- while the stoned hypnotic grooves recall those of Bevan's former outfit.
It is good. At times it's exciting. But it's not great. And the surprising heaviness of the music doesn't give Marr's delicate strummings and pluckings space to breathe. Pop catchiness has been dumped in favour of head-down, earnest, all consuming rock. For a fleeting moment there Ian McCulloch's Electrafixion period springs to mind. Marr is still one of the coolest men in rock but it's hard to imagine many people buying a Healers album.
But perhaps that's not the point. Perhaps this is what the man wants at the moment. And who can knock him for that? To these ears though, it just doesn't seem enough for the man responsible for some of the finest music to come out of this country in ages. You leave tonight wondering what a Johnny Marr unplugged album would sound like. Or what he could achieve if he and Morrissey were to…..
