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Morrissey at O2 Academy, Leeds

Morrissey

On playing Ganglord Steven Morrissey muses to his audience which ages with him and muses "I smell the lowest chart position of my career, unless..."

Hand clenched put pointed upwards his eyes rise and his band of checked shirted boys strike up Cemetery Gates.

He refers to Swindon and the first night of this tour which ended within minutes of the opening refrains of This Charming Man - Morrissey has started The Smiths revival without Johnny Marr and is right to do so arrowing the phrase "Punctured bicycle on a hillside, desolate" across the room he reminds all that while Marr and his union was beautiful no one liked or loathed the definitive band of the eighties because of the noodlings from Marr's guitar.

Morrissey spent an evening in a Wiltshire hospital with breathing difficulties and tonight - four days later - his skin as a waxy, ill look about it in comparison to the gleaming, tanned Steven who returned to his homeland in 2004 with album You Are The Quarry and a set of gigs that saw the man tanned, robust, powerful and epitomised by the snarl of Irish Blood, English Heart which crisply played tonight.

He commands though This Charming Man and races into his newer work setting a tone for the evening in which he enjoys his current album unsettling all with the odd gem of his past. From The Smiths canon emerge unexpectedly Is It Really So Strange?, How Soon Is Now? and - in a seething awe - Nowhere Fast the live performance tonight of does justice to its status as one of the best tracks on the best album by one of the best bands to have made a noise.

Nowhere Fast sits well along Morrissey and his men's blues tinged slap bass current efforts the performance ends with Morrissey at the rear of the dark stage picked out by spotlight in a swirl of haze and bassist Soloman Walker thumping out the end of I'm OK By Myself taking the last bow of the evening, the solid figure of the iconic front man silhouetted behind him before the raucous return and end with First of the Gang to Die.

There is awe, even in the reasonably minded there is awe, but that is not what the evening will be recalled for. Thirty minutes in and the now fifty year old man bombastically treads the stage teasing his devotees with the chance to speak into his microphone. "Do you want to say something?" he asks down to the front row and - as he has many times - bends down to offer and withdraw.

Frozen in time though someone speaks clearly to the singer - to his idol - to this icon and softly he says tells the singer that he is looking well, and that he is sounding good, and that he should - please - look after himself.

The singer moves backwards and his face is near indescribable. His eyes bleed forward tenderly and he might mouth or say "Thank you" because at fifty after a lifetime of leading this near army of devotees and followers though his teasing and tantrums and his affection and rejection Morrissey - for a second - is subject to his supporters.

His eyes show a powerlessness, for a second only, and a dedication as if he could form the words he would thank the world for allowing him his part of it. For a second only and after what would seem to be the scare of his life it seems that Morrissey is the young man again plucked by his bedroom and put on stage simultaneously seeking attention and painfully shy. The boy again, but for a second.

That, as he would sing, is how people grow up.

The Answering Machine at The Cockpit 3, Leeds

Some bands are hardly seen as they flash by you.

They pick guitars in garages and start to string a few chords together and then what seems like months later they have gone from nowhere to a level of success and subsequent fame that leaves them out of the stratosphere they by passed so quickly, responsive only - perhaps - to the odd recorded message.

The Answering Machine

At least that is how it seems to be to the casual observer. In truth the level of effort put into the first push of a band is massive and generated on nights like this as Manchester's melodic grunge four piece The Answering Machine play to a healthy crowd in the confined space of Cockpit 3.

Three skinny lads and a lass who looks like Thelma, or was it Velma?, from Scooby Doo they are an unremarkable collective to look at. Strike up the first chords of Lightblubs and they impress immediately.

The pasty singer Martin Colclough ensues the nasal delivery of his home town preceding a cleaner, more measured timbre as he yanks tune after tune out if his well loved guitar.

Songs that plough a furrow of rasping pop played on fuzzed up guitars lacking the twee of The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart or Those Dancing Days but not the energy.

Cliffer and Oh Christina arrive early in the set and set an impressively high bar. You Should've Called shows a depth to their canon while the cover of The Wannadies You + Me Song shows interesting influences.

Before near end song Oklahoma a chance to muse on the band who seem to have had enough about them to impress someone into putting Its Over, Its Over, Its Over onto the soundtrack for Fifa10 and may be about to zoom past playing venues like this small loft in Leeds in double quick time moving up to a place where their rapport with the crowd alone suggests they might go. I do hope so, music needs the more interesting bands in any genre to be the more celebrated.

On top of that The Answering Machine play tunes that burrow into your brain. That, plus the hard work they show, suggest that levels of recognition will not be far away.

Brendan Benson at The Cockpit, Leeds

Brendan Benson

A moment: American singer, songwriter and part time member of The Raconteurs Brendan Benson is buzzing through a second cover of the sixty minute set which is the fourth song of a six number encore when I'm taken by a glint from a ring on his left hand that seems as new an addition as the curl headed thin man's smile.

It is a wedding ring and Brendan Benson is happy.

Previously Benson has cut a figure as one of the most miserable men in pop drawing a stark contrast to the up beat Gram Parson heavy Cosmic American Music he has played for four solo albums and two as equal partner to Jack White.

Blazing through songs new and old with something approaching, no, clearly with a smile on his face Benson's merriment continues the contradictions at the heart of his music. He delves into his first album for Sittin' Pretty which is an upbeat number about minor S&M and revisits - albeit in a less obviously introspective way - definitive track Matarie which drops the lengthy description of a lonely night at home but keeps the melodramatic rejection that forms the basis of his songwriting style.

He sings it with a smile though and the glint of ring suggests it is the smile of a man flicking through an old diary with a happy reminisce. "These are the songs of heartbreak I used to know," they seem to say, "but I'm through all that."

A creative singer songwriter with the pop sensibilities if Paul McCartney had an upbringing of The Byrds his next move becomes very interesting indeed.

For now though there are reminiscence rather than urgency and a sense that not all guys who pick up guitars to sing their woes are doomed to unhappy endings.

Maxïmo Park at The Apollo, Manchester

"This is a song that all the band have fallen in love with" says Paul Smith as his band - and a four piece brass sections snuck onto the side of the stage - dive headlong into Questing, Not Coasting.

This is Dalliance's second Maxïmo Park of the year - the first in Leeds having been just after the release of the bands third album Quicken The Heart - and in the months between the two which have seen the band festival playing and touring a set of songs that the North Easteners clearly burst with pride little has changed about the show and the liveliness of it.

There is a few guys adding a brass section to some of the songs and this allows the Pulp-esque Acrobat with its spoken word vocal to be added to the encore but on the whole the set is the same and teething troubles of introducing an audience to new material has been conquered.

It is singer Smith, of course, who maketh the band with his powerful stage presence a mix of sprightly pouncing and the ability to project the more tender moments of his lyrics. That he very probably is the best front man to tread this boards since Morrissey is as much for his bowed headed emotes as the on speaker air punching of Apply Some Pressure.

Questing, Not Coasting is a pinnacle with Smith flicking from desperate lothario to born again romantic adding a baroque performance to the melodrama of the stormy Newcastle night his lyrics paint.

Lyrics which mature with Quicken The Heart which this writer believes will be seen as a superior work to those which proceeded it in the fullness of time nestling alongside the likes of Seamonsters and Black Sheep Boy as definitive third albums. That, for a band for whom live performances of the quality that is seen in The Apollo tonight are the norm, suggests that unlike the peers they so quickly leave behind Maximo Park have the best years ahead of them.

Minus Jack, Napoleon III, Just Handshakes (We're British) and Theoretical Girl & The Equations Blank Generation Disco at 1 in 12 Club, Bradford

Minus Jack

Spikes are always welcome in young bands and Minus Jack are fresh faced and ready to make interesting noises. Having gone some distance in the short career they have to date they played the second stage of Kendal Calling in the summer they are a rare mix of confidence with a youthful naiveté.

Guitars thrashed in pleasing ways later Napoleon III takes to the stage in front of a four track and behind a set of three microphones offering his first missive about how what he does is not his proper job, it just pays the bills to which we assume he means a day job and not playing live.

That said Napoleon III seems perturbed about something - imagine a really grumpy version of The Voluntary Bulter Scheme on a really grumpy day - so perhaps he does find the music a grind. Certainly it is cathartic with him growling at times sinking his songs under layers of noise.

It is well performed with one man making an impressively loud sound and - in a way - crafted. I would never say that Napoleon III was not good but the experience of listening and watching is - to me - repulsive. Napoleon III accurately gets over what is in his head to the audience but I'm not sure I welcome such a vex to my mind.

Lacking spikes and vexment are Just Handshakes (We're British) who are enjoyable but somewhat forgettable. They show the influences routed in Swedish twee pop but lack a modulation in what they do. The first song sounds good, the second like the first and so on.

Theoretical Girl

More individuality can be found in Theoretical Girl who headlines the late running gig with an all too brief run through tracks from her album Divided which playfully narrate the odd tale of unrequited love with the Girl herself Amy switching between keyboard and guitar. There are many women doing singer/songwriter - indeed this site had praised at length Blue Roses and things that Florence's Lungs are worth a listen - and Theoretical Girl sit alongside those being more wry than the one and smarter than the other.

Theoretical Girl convinces with a sturdy performance that lacks any fake self-effacement and flashes with confidence. It seems to be the music of someone playing and singing exactly what she wants, a captivating thing.