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Morrissey at The Empire, Sunderland

"I'm sorry for being unoriginal." Steven says looking playfully at the aging but rapt audience in the music hall classic surroundings of the Sunderland Empire.Not to his second song - the ebullient First Of The Gang To Die - does he refer but to opener Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before.

A song now imitated but not by the man, not by Morrissey, who does not dwell on self referential imitation or parody. The twistiest verbalist in music plays this straight.

Honesty has something to do with the magnetism on stage when Morrissey performs but as he mixes new songs - That's How People Grow Up and Something Is Squeezing My Skull have a similar urgency to the highlights of his extensive back catalogue - in with records written a quarter of a decade ago then one guesses that there is a element of reclamation showmanship at work.

Showmanship that looks on a collection of imitators of The Smiths that grew into a genre. He takes back all that was once his as in flickering black and white strobe guitarist Boz Boorer grinds out the chords of How Soon Is Now and Morrissey is caught not just in light nor in time but in legend. He is Ozymandius.

Four times he departs the stage changing from tuxedo to throw away shirt and each time he plays on the notion that he may not return. He tells the audience he is staying in Newcastle to jeers - "Was is something I said?" he smiles.

The heart of Morrissey's magnetism - and until seen it is impossible to understand just how impressive the man on stage is - is this easy charisma that begs to be loved and that toys with the relationship between audience and act. Is he there to entertain us or - with his simple chides and scattered comments - are we wheeled in to amuse him on a cold night in the North East of England?

Regardless there is little that pop can offer to match Morrissey in this form and for a dozen and a half tunes he delivers. English Blood, Irish Heart is his modern classic, The Death of a Disco Dancer effortlessly peerless. Tomorrow - the sole track from the forgotten classic Your Arsenal - sounds picked out of time from some glorious age of heartfelt song. Morrissey at his best is without irony.

I could listen all night, everyone here would if given a chance.

Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want comes with a yoked in significance over twenty years since it was written and it rings clear and true tonight. It breaks hearts, it brings tears. It genuinely brings tears.

A single song as encore - Last Of The Famous International Playboys - and Morrissey and his five strong band of lads are gone to return at his whim in a place as random as this old cinema in Sunderland should the mood take him.

My First Tooth, Two Madre and The Rosie Taylor Project Blank Generation at The Love Apple, Bradford

The Rosie Taylor Project

As the acoustic offerings of other gigs in Bradford are lost in a hub-bub of conversation and chatter The Love Apple's oft forgotten other night of mellowed out tunes offers a proposition that could not be further from those busy Friday nights of Granadaland.The Rosie Taylor Project open Sunday night's Blank Generation and as with the other bands on they play mostly to an audience of each other and a selected few who have turned up making a Spartan yet friendly crowd.

Veterans of Jens Lekman support The Rosie Taylor Project are a throwback to the simple pop of The Field Mice with a loving hint of the Modern Folk or Badly Drawn Boy et al. They struggle to balance the sound with a newly signed drummer on stage thickening the sound but eventually manage to project and start to impress with Black And White Films sounding crisp and a growing and warm appreciation towards the five piece.

Jonny looks like the kid in Almost Famous and makes the most of his limited chord set while cloud heeled Sophie switches between trumpet and French horn mid-song and while the latter is lost in the drifting sound the effort is appreciated. Nick the chain trousered bassist has a sit down between songs and sometimes they seem a little too twee for their own good but The Rosie Taylor Project works well and they are sent from the stage with smiles.

Two Madre are small on smiles and this is their last gig for a while. They are dubbed "Bradford's Experimental Superheroes" and while they are amiable they revolutionise nothing and seem to struggle to get comfortable in this their finale.

Guitar and vocal Bill seems to enjoy himself more than the sullen faced Ruth who prods keyboards and plays Sax and the sound drifts around the room transiently.

My First Tooth

More enthusiastic is Sophie of My First Tooth who steals tonight's show as something of an all tricks assistant to senior guitar and vocalist Ross's performance. Obviously talented My First Tooth's acoustic pushed melodies are whimsical and border on the wonderful when combined with the odd trumpet - another brass blower - and a bizarre mouth keyboard thing that the youthful Sophie masters with amusingly powerful effect.

The two make an interesting combination on stage and the willingness of the one combines with the wistful detachment of the other. Sleet & Snow is dreamy and tasty and a good percentage of the small audience queue for a copy of the band's demos after the applauded set comes to a close as does the Blank Generation night which deserves more support if only for being the ideal way to spend the drying embers of a Sunday evening as Winter pushes into Spring.

More please.

British Sea Power, Hot Puppies and fourteencorners BD1 Live at St George's Hall and Brewery Arts Centre, Bradford and Kendal

British Sea Power - Live Review BD1 Live, St George's Hall Bradford with Hot Puppies & fourteencorners in September 2007 and Brewery Arts Centre Kendal in February 2008

British Sea Power

British Sea Power are playing a fifteen minute guitar solo and I doubt I have ever been more bored in my entire band watching life.

Fourteencorners

Hot Puppies

The sort-of Brighton but not really four piece are running out the end of an uninspired set at Bradford's St George's Hall that has seen a magnificent support from Fourteencorners and some excellent work from Hot Puppies but Sea Power - despite the promises - are dull.

Those promises came from guys. Guy who had travelled. Guys had travelled from far and wide to see this band perform in this not on tour stop for BD1's November outing and specifically the promise came from a guy who had travelled from Ipswich just for the night.

"These," he tells me, "Are the only British band who can rival the Canadians." He goes into a wonderful dewy eye reminisce about seeing Arcade Fire live and prepares for the UK's answer to smart rock. Well he should do because British Sea Power while taking themselves rather seriously - The Brakes without the laughs - are a superb band on album but tonight they are simply dull.

They open with a few recognisable tunes but quickly bring confusion to even the most ardent listener with a range of hitherto unheard tracks and lengthy middle sections which are unwelcome. They play a few recognisable tunes and in doing so at least provide a frame of reference as we swim in a lost water of indigence, adrift in the chasms of space in Bradford's prestige venue.

"We only have two more..."

"We only have two more songs to play in Kendal and Larsen B isn't on of them" Hamilton tells the rapturous collective of men and women who have braved the freezing Lake District air to pack into the 250 or fewer capacity arts centre in BSP's other home town and they have played Remember Me and Fear of Drowning tonight but almost everything else has been from the newly released second best album of the year 2008 - behind The Magnetic Field's Distortion in case you are wondering what my humble opinion is - but familiarity has bred response.

British Sea Power - with added Brakes and Electric Soft Parade drummer Tom White, a violinist girl and some guy in a fantastic hat playing a fog horn - are thriving in the sort of venue that getting a top ten album - Do You Like Rock Music? is at ten in the album parade at time of writing - should preclude but having blasted out Lights Out For Darker Skies on entry to the eight foot highceiling-ed room so they smashed energetically, powerfully, wilfully through a collection which they obviously consider - perhaps with justification - the best songs they have done.

Canvey Island is epic, No Lucifer well received and Waving Flags anthemic and all are played with a confidence that borders on and might slip into arrogance but as the title suggests this is Rock Music and Rock Music should be presented with the confident sneer that Yan, Noble and especially Hamilton exude. Do you like Rock Music? they challenge, because if you so you are not going to hear better than this.

And there is atmosphere aplenty and there is Noble diving into the sea and powered by the arms of the audience walking inverted around the small room without every letting his stern poker face slip and returning the the stage to be fiercely thrown to the floor and standing a veteran of showmanship during the same fifteen minute guitar solo.