MORRISSEY

Stop me if you've heard this one before - curtains up, thunderous applause, mopey jams, clothing thrown and torn, exit stage left. For five nights this past week, this is exactly what you got during Morrissey's triumphant return to New York City. Forget about the canceled Madison Square Garden gig, and let's not talk about the $65 Hammerstein tickets being reduced to $22 a week before the shows. Overestimating your drawing power is something every major musician deals with as the sunset years start to swell, and 2007 has been a watershed year of sorts for Morrissey. Cancelled and rescheduled shows were announced like clockwork this year, and as they mounted up, fans started to surmise about poor ticket sales being the culprit and not the throat infections the press was pushing. The Richard Burton/James Dean set backdrops don't exactly argue against the whole thing being an oldies act, either. But on Sunday, as he closed out his epic Hammerstein Ballroom residency, Morrissey seemed eager, almost determined, to live up to his own grandeur. FULL REVIEW