Indie Music Legend Morrissey Rages About Royal Oak Show

By Christy Strawser
CBS Detroit Managing Editor
Ah, Morrissey, tell us what you really think.

The British performer and indie music legend took to his website to rate his best performances of the year -- and the worst -- and little suburban Royal Oak, Mich., took the brunt of his legendary ire.

Morrissey, former lead singer of The Smiths, blasted security at his sold-out December show for savaging fans.

"I stopped the show at the Royal Oak Theater in Michigan in consideration of the audience - who were being unashamedly assaulted by the in-house security," he wrote. "It is difficult to watch this happen, especially when our friends ... are being forcibly choked to death simply for being there.

"If such attacks happened at the opera or in a night-club, the victims would rightfully sue."

The Royal Oak Music Theatre was long a sore subject for Royal Oak police, who argued there weren't enough of them to patrol such a large facility. The city stopped all dancing there years ago to keep the crowds as docile as possible.

In this instance, according to a concert review in The Daily Tribune, the show ended during an encore when audience members rushed the stage, which happens at Morrissey shows. "Morrissey stopped the music and stated, "We'd like to thank Royal Oak security. Bleh!" before storming off stage," according to the report.

But Royal Oak wasn't the only scapegoat on his site. Morrissey also said his appearance at The Shrine in Los Angeles was a disaster, calling the venue "an open slum."

"Degradingly, the front of the hall is an orchestra pit so lowered that I found myself singing to a mass of hair," he wrote. "The people at the front - who possibly paid the most - were quite literally down a hole. It was embarrassing for me, and surely humiliating for them."