Manchester, England’s most depressing export, Steven Patrick Morrissey, known to fans as simply Morrissey, played in front of an incredibly eclectic crowd Friday night at the Palace Theatre. The former front man for the 1980s pop group, The Smiths, took the crowd into the palm of his hands and left the audience entranced with a set lasting almost an hour and a half with songs mainly from his solo career, as well as a few Smiths tunes.

Opening the show was Kristeen Young. Though she was a mixture of The Dresden Dolls and Bjork, she lacked the overall charisma of either. Playing an almost-45-minute set, the crowd appeared to be bored and restless for Morrissey to take the stage.

Coming out in front of a backdrop of James Dean, Morrissey and his band flew right into the Smiths’ hit, “The Queen is Dead” before going into “First of the Gang to Die,” from his 2003 effort “You are the Quarry.”

“Thank you for letting me play in your palace,” Morrissey said with a bow to the crowd after the first couple songs.

Although Pope of Mope is almost 50 years old, he performed with enough vigor and sounded as good, if not better, than anyone half his age. As the set went on, he began to lose his clothing. In the middle of “Let Me Kiss You,” he ripped his buttoned-up Oxford off and threw it into the crowd. Soon thereafter, he left the stage to get another shirt which stayed on for the remainder of the set.

The beginning of the set was laced with tracks the crowd received very well, but it got a little slow in the middle of the set.

The tour was being hailed as a “greatest hits” tour, but the hits were missing throughout most of the show.

The band did a great job of playing hits such as, “Panic,” “Everyday is Like Sunday” and “How Soon is Now?” but there was a huge emphasis on his more recent work, namely “Ringer of the Tormentors” from which he played five tracks. In addition, the rest of the set consisted of rather random and obscure song choices. While tracks such as, “National Front Disco” and “I’ve Changed My Plea to Guilty” are great tunes, they hardly qualify as “greatest hits.”

Despite this, the audience still ate up both Moz’s performance and words. Singing along with songs such as, “The Boy with the Thorn in His Side” and “Irish Blood, English Heart,” the crowd was wide-ranging from young children to men and women in their 70s.

After a very drawn out version of “Life is a Pigsty” that brought the mood down and left Morrissey laying on the ground against the drum riser, a guitar kicked in and the band struck up arguably his biggest hit, “How Soon is Now?” before leaving the stage for a few minutes to roaring applause.

He finally reemerged and performed the slow ballad, “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want This Time” and the grand finale of “You’re Gonna Need Someone on Your Side.” During this encore, about 12 fans began to rush the stage in an attempt to at least touch Morrissey. He was very gracious and would hug them back or hold onto their hands for as long as possible for those lucky enough to get through. But a few were subdued by security and were thrown back to the floor.

It is this type of fanaticism that has given Morrissey a very cult-like following here in America and does not appear to be going away as he or his fans age.

Alex Drumm can be reached at [email protected].