by Ed Schrader | August 26, 2008 at 8:00 am
Posted in DIY Scene, music
I don’t like to wander too far afield from the Baltimore scene, but sometimes the occasion requires it. Patti Smith is that occasion.
Hearing Smith cover “Smells Like Teen Spirit” at Lincoln Center’s live outdoor amphitheater in New York City is kind of like watching Alfred Hitchcock recite lines from “The Shining” at Druid Hill Park (just to give you a sense of things). You look at the red-haired, middle-aged mom standing next to you enthralled and wonder what strange portal of pop culture you’ve arrived in.
Needless to say, Smith can still keep up with the best of ‘em. Her hour-and-20-minute set included classics “Gloria” and “Because the Night,” along with newer tunes such as Ralph Nader’s campaign anthem, “People Have the Power,” and the equally political “Peaceable Kingdom,” from 2004’s album Trampin’. The audience was treated to a performance that could easily be held up alongside a CBGB’s gig from a mid-’70s Patti Smith (and Patti Smith Group).
The group’s lineup has changed since those days to now include her son, Jackson Smith, on guitar, but the mighty six-string sage Lenny Kaye, who’s been an integral part of the band since its beginnings in 1974, remains. Yet judging by the ferocious rapidity of raw energy exuded, you would have thought Smith had just hopped off the subway with a napkin-scrawled poem eagerly seeking some wild-eyed madmen to form a band with.
I have seen Smith before, but never like this. There was a pervading sense throughout the crowd that we were damn lucky to be there, witnessing a hell-blazing, kicking, stomping (and occasionally) spitting performance that would have humbled any fresh-faced rabble rouser who dared to stand in the shadow of the godmother of punk.
It was a free show, yet the masses stood respectfully in awe as Smith rekindled the goosebumps of yesteryear with breathtaking fervor and presence — most notably on Easter’s “We Shall Live Again,” hauntingly echoing its religiously oriented contempt, against the backdrop of a passing commercial airliner. When Smith raises her hands to the sky like a possessed priestess, you just gotta testify!
Even the rather bizarre makeover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Are You Experienced” kicked up some angst with Smith’s manic translation. The covers were a product of last year’s Twelve, an album that goes about rehashing everything from The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan to Tears For Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule The World” and the previously mentioned Nirvana.
Ever the activist, Smith embarked on a few political sidebars, lashing out, not too surprisingly, at the Bush administration at various times throughout the night and telling us, “We cannot forget Guantanamo Bay.” She was surprisingly self-effacing about it all, though, saying, “All right. I’ll stop now. Ha ha.” Well, if were lucky, that won’t be for a while.
http://www.bthesite.com/archives/2008/0 ... %99t-stop/