I went to see Morrisey, not because I am a massive racist, but because I was listening to music one night, heard a couple of his songs and was reminded how brilliant he could be. On the strength of last night’s O2 performance, his best days are behind him.

Still, things could have been much worse. There were no guest appearances by Tommy Robinson or Nigel Farage and the closest he came to being edgy was when he said, “I’m very concerned with all communities but the one that’s at risk now is my own community.” At this point a massive picture of Oscar Wilde appeared and he started playing English Blood, Irish Heart. I choose to take this as meaning that he defines his community as gay, Irish writers. I am sure that was the intention.

In fact, the closest thing I saw to English nationalism on display was a man wearing a pair of butcher’s apron socks and even they were not terribly ostentatious. My impression was that the crowd treat some of his less pleasant views the way they put up with a relative with dementia who swears at the carers.

Musically the evening was rather flat. Material from his impending album was so-so. A version of The Smiths’ How Soon is Now sounded more like a workmanlike cover than a masterpiece performed by its writer. The O2 didn’t help. It is a venue with the charm of a large international airport. I have seen Nick Cave create a real sense of community there and Leonard Cohen made everyone feel like a group of friends he’d invited round for tea. Morrisey’s approach was more that of a bitter man telling people he’d been hard done by even though he is a genius.

He didn’t help himself or the band with the staging. As the auditorium is so massive, most acts have large screens so that you can actually see them. Not Morrisey, so he and the group remained tiny figures who could barely be seen. What we got was frequently irritating projections of films and clips from the 50s, 60s and 70s. Given where Morrisey has ended up politically I was surprised to see James Baldwin up there. Self-pitying Alf Garnett, another man raging against a changing world might have been more apt. For American readers, he was a Cockney Archie Bunker.

There were a few moments when people thought they were getting their money’s worth. Every Day Is Just Like Sunday got people on their feet and he closed at 10.15 with a singalong version of There Is a Light That Never Goes Out. On the strength of last night, I think it has.