Johnny Marr kicks off in Denver

I have grown to enjoy the Paramount Theatre in downtown Denver. Colorado Springs lacks an old-school theater venue (the Pikes Peak Center is new construction, and the Memorial Auditorium won’t find a champion before it crumbles to dust). For the right band, the Paramount is a perfect rock show space. 

On this night it hosted British band James and Smiths guitarist and all-around likable guy Johnny Marr. Earlier that day, Marr was in the news due to cantankerous old bandmate Morrissey, who blamed Marr for not responding to a nine-figure reunion offer and registering the Smiths trademark in his name. 

In his reply, Marr coolly responded that he could not get a reply from Morrissey’s management so he registered the trademark to avoid any unscrupulous outside from nabbing the Smiths moniker, and that he did respond to the reunion offer, only to turn it down. 

Later that day Morrissey fired his management, and we had the pleasure of seeing Johnny Marr open his tour in Denver. 

First came James, who I only knew through their 1993 single Laid, which was everywhere for about a year three decades ago. Then the band disappeared from the pop culture radar. 

They didn’t dare finish their hour-long set without playing that one, but apparently it stayed on many Denverites’ radars, as every song led to a profuse amount of dancing in the aisles and audience members shouting lyrics. 

In fairness, they had three other singles I missed back in the day – She’s a Star, Sit Down, and Come Home – and all of them made the set. 

They touched on eight albums (Laid was the only one I remembered) but whipped up the crowd and brought some A-level excitement as an opener. 

Johnny Marr has had a peripatetic career since the Smiths, including solo records, a memorable stint in Modest Mouse, a sadly forgotten project from the early 1990s called Electronic, and side man for other musicians. He had been quietly prolific, yet was still celebrated for the Smiths.

For all his jumping around, Marr’s presence always made the work better - his heavily arpeggiated guitar style made We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank a post-fame highlight for Modest Mouse. He found room for several notable Smiths songs, and I was glad, since I might never hear them otherwise. 

All six were classics – the overplayed How Soon is Now?, This Charming Man, Panic, The Headmaster Ritual, There is a Light that Never Goes Out, and Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want. 

The last song is closest to me, although I would never turn down the jaunty Panic or the slinking, deceptively complex This Charming Man, which both reveal the versatility of the never-to-reunite Smiths. 

Marr sprinkled in a pair of Electronic songs and a cover of my favorite Iggy Pop song (The Passenger). The other tracks traversed a series of solo albums I never knew existed. 

Marr served as the glue holding everything together. I might not have been attracted to a tour anchored to a latter-day album, but Marr’s career diversity allowed him to bring his signature sound across numerous projects and decades. 

Marr and the increasingly controversial Morrissey will assuredly never meet onstage again, but I couldn’t be happier that Marr keeps the flame going.