For his 45th birthday, Morrissey got his career back, and Who Put The 'M' In Manchester? captures the precise moment it happened. Filmed just days after the release of 2004's You Are The Quarry, his first album in seven years, the DVD puts the former Smiths singer in front of nearly 20,000 eager hometown fans who snapped up every ticket to the show—his first in Manchester in 12 years—as though they were getting passes to a Beatles concert. The shy singer's paradoxically brazen stage presence, not to mention a set loaded with Smiths classics—kept the audience on his side throughout the lengthy, engaging performance. In front of triumphant lights inspired by Elvis' '68 comeback special, Morrissey mixes clever new ("I Have Forgiven Jesus") with classic old ("The Headmaster Ritual"), making sense of his career as a continuum rather than one halved by his old band's breakup.
Who Put The 'M' In Manchester? doesn't stop with his homecoming show. Extras on the DVD include four music videos (including Morrissey looking strangely comfortable dressed as a priest in "I Have Forgiven Jesus") and bonus footage from another Manchester concert. Interviews with obsessive fans, including a gent with "Love is just a miserable lie" tattooed over his heart, are also sprinkled throughout, providing an always-interesting window into the man himself. And though it's not listed on the packaging, the ever-ardent vegetarian found space on his new disc for the PETA-produced, Alec Baldwin-narrated short "Meet Your Meat."