Halfway through, somewhere between ‘Dancing Barefoot’ and ‘Because the Night’, Patti Smith (75) changes from a rock legend to an obnoxious old lady. A fan tried to give her a gift, maybe a book. „Who has these garbage on my stage thrown,” she fulminates.
Above the stage of Paradiso are the words Soli Deo Gloria. †Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine‘ Patti Smith sang here in 1975. And now again, just like that. In The Paradise, as she persistently calls the room. She is in good voice on ‘My Blakean Year’ and takes the time to honor her mentor Allen Ginsberg with his ‘Footnote to Howl’. “I’ll stop talking about in fifteen minutes.”
In the punk era, a band would have been pelted with beer if they had dared to play a Led Zeppelin song here. Smith, in an unsuccessful attempt to make her son Jackson Smith a guitar hero, Led Zeps sings “Since I’ve Been Loving You.” Not so good, compared to her own classics and two Dylan songs that she does more justice. She asks for applause for Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith, her late husband and Jackson’s father.
children’s souls
Patti Smith is on a noble mission. She dedicates ‘Beneath the Southern Cross’ to the souls of the children who were mowed down at a school in America this week. By another child, she adds. †Feel you’re fucking free”she shouts. †We’re fucking alive† God did not give us weapons but our fists and the electric guitar.”
The concert collapses with an obligatory cover of Jimi Hendrix’ ‘Stone Free’ and the slow moving songs ‘Nine’ and ‘Boy Cried Wolf’, with wolf howling from the audience. “Did you fall asleep?” she asks. Always a sign of weakness, when an artist doesn’t seek a lack of response in the first place. After ‘Pissing in a River’ follows the apotheosis. Her faithful companion and guitarist from the very beginning Lenny Kaye flew to Amsterdam especially and plays the last two songs: ‘Gloria’ and ‘People Have the Power’. It was, with trial and error, yet again a great performance.