Morrissey finally showed up in San Antonio, offering long-awaited answer to its undying love

Last night at a sold out show at San Antonio’s Boeing Center at Tech Port, Morrissey did something unexpected: he actually showed up.

He also took the opportunity on stage to direct a few snide remarks at the Current, specifically the paper’s speculation, which started nearly a year ago, as to whether the former Smiths frontman was going to appear.

“Any suggestion of canceling this show — the very suggestion was cancelled,” the crooner said at the end of the set, after performing the exotic “I Will See You in Far-off Places.”

“In fact,” he sniffed, “I don’t know what you mean by ‘still.”

Morrissey was referring to the very first suggestion when you Google “Morrissey San Antonio,” which, after the Boeing Center event listing itself, is the Current article titled “Live Nation and venue confirm Morrissey’s San Antonio show is still on … for now.“

Seeming to be particularly bothered by my choice of the word “still,” he also changed the words of “How soon is now?” singing ” I am STILL the son, STILL the son and heir,” interjecting “really? really?” after viciously belting out “you shut your mouth how can you say, I go about things the wrong way?”

To be sure, the Current wasn’t alone in wondering “will he or won’t he?” Indeed, many Alamo City fans seemed to be asking the same question. The singer has canceled on us four times in a row, after all.

I wasn’t convinced he was actually going to play, even up until he took the stage.

Ahead of the night’s show, Current staff speculated on the odds. “Hope he doesn’t cancel at the last minute. Cedar pollen is high!” a coworker texted me. “Vibes are off! A butterfly flapped its wings in Phuket!” I replied.

When Morrissey took the stage and began belting out classics such as “There is a Light that Never Goes Out” and “Suedehead,” my incredulity was mirrored in the crowd.

“He actually made it, man!” a concert goer behind me exclaimed to a friend.

I don’t blame Moz for being salty about the speculation, though it was a little jarring to realize he’s aware of my writing at all. Since the initial May concert was scheduled in February 2025 and then rescheduled for January, 2026, I have covered this question a lot. And I mean, very many times.

To quote the bard’s words back to him, “I’m so sorry.”

But the British icon hasn’t exactly instilled San Antonio with confidence. Not only has Morrissey canceled on the city four times in a row over the past six years — he is notorious for a high rate of cancelations and postponements throughout the world.

There are even online trackers dedicated to Morrissey’s cancelation rate. Last year, it averaged 50%. By the numbers, when people asked “What’s the over/under on Morrissey canceling?” I told them to flip a coin.

Morrissey also canceled the entire South American leg of his tour at the end of 2025 due to “extreme exhaustion.” But his 2026 cancelation rate has thus far been even worse. Both California dates leading up to San Antonio’s show were also postponed due to an “adverse reaction” to medication.

It might be hard for Morrissey — he hates being called Moz and says it “sounds like something you’d squirt on the kitchen floor” — to see that the Current’s ribbing was precisely because this city loves him so much. Unequivocally and eternally. This city has longed for him with a yearning only he can understand and put into words.

As the days and hours inched closer to Saturday’s show, thousands of San Antonians were thinking, “Please, please, please, let me get what I want.”

And Morrissey finally gave it to them.

The crooner delivered with a set of tracks from an illustrious career spanning half a century, his baritone falsetto preserved in amber, frozen in time. Like an inverse Dorian Gray, the singer has aged (gracefully), but the art has not aged at all.

At one point, The Portrait of Dorian Gray author Oscar Wilde — one of the singer’s major influences — featured on the screen behind him. Jack Kerouac appeared during “Life is a Pigsty,” Joan Crawford for “Let me Kiss You” and Bruce Lee for the timelessly cool Smiths track “How Soon Is Now?”

Cinematic references such as U.S. avant garde filmmaker Maya Deren and Mathieu Kassowitz’s La Haine, a gritty French movie about immigrants in Paris, also played behind him. Many things might bore Morrissey, but the man is nothing if not cultured.

To balance out the frippery, he also has a penchant for brutes, boxers and the sultry, misunderstood James Dean. Perhaps that’s why he ripped off his shirt Saturday — as he is want to do — as a show of masculinity.

Other tracks featured in the set included “First of the Gang to Die,” “Irish Blood, English Heart,” “Every Day is Like Sunday” and Western-infused track “The Loop.” Morrissey also performed the Smiths song “Paint a Vulgar Picture” — its first time being played live since 1997.

Notably absent from the set was his brand new triphop-tinged single with a Björk-esque beat, “Makeup Is a Lie.” Dropped Friday, the edgy and intoxicating track demonstrates a musicality just as fresh and relevant as ever.

“I’m sure you heard the very good news,” the singer said onstage of the release. However, he said the band wouldn’t be performing the new single this show — because it has to learn it first.

Saturday’s performance made it clear why San Antonio loves Morrissey so much, despite the many controversies that follow him.

No one does loneliness and alienation quite like Morrissey, except for maybe Sartre or Camus.

So when he sings …

“If you’re so funny
Then why are you on your own tonight?
And if you’re so clever
Then why are you on your own tonight?”

… he’s not only singing about his own loneliness but yours too. Likely adding to San Antonio’s and Mexico’s love for Morrissey are the many comparisons of his melodramatic ballads to ranchera balladeers.

“He’s basically the British Vicente Fernández,” my concert companion remarked.

The lovelorn songster may not do a grito, but it comes through nonetheless.

This is why fans rush the stage after a show — like one San Antonio man did — to embrace the foppish dandy and “professional refusenik.”

And why they sang along to nearly every word, returning his plaintiff pining.

This is why his fans’ undying love is a light that will never go out.

Photos by Oscar Moreno.