Patti Smith
Backyard, July 21
From the sky deck of the Backyard, Patti Smith and band, lit in blues and greens, only looked like a typical group of twentysomethings. Dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, shaggy-haired, and without the requisite 20-lb weight gain aging rockers often sport, Smith planted her feet apart and launched into “Waiting Underground” from 1997’s Peace and Noise. At 53, Smith does not seem ready to retire or step back, and like Chrissie Hynde, she’s traded some of her youthful fury for a cool that compromises nothing. What it means is that Smith’s power comes from her maturity and not from a sweaty display onstage. It also requires a sharp ear, for the beauty of her music is as lyrical as it is aural, and while that sounded wonderful when she read, it was often lost in the live mix. Smith does not appear overly outgoing as a person, so it was fun hearing her be so chatty onstage, confiding that she plans tours around her children’s school year and muffing KGSR’s name until someone handed her a fan with the station’s call letters prominently displayed. “KSR something,” she joked, waving it in her face just before kicking into Dylan’s “Wicked Messenger” from 1996’s “Gone Again.” The third song, “Glitter in Their Eyes,” was from her latest album Gung Ho, and then she pulled out “Redondo Beach” from her 1976 debut Horses. Her adoring fans barely filled half the grounds of the Backyard, but the familiar sound of her three-plus decades of music was an affirmation to those true believers who swooned when she did “Dancing Barefoot” and “Because the Night” back-to-back. “Not Fade Away” was unexpectedly potent, Smith riveting as she chant-sang the song’s awkward but hypnotic words: “Love for real and not fade away.” For her encore she presented another classic, the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby,” and closed with “Gloria” interspersed with “Rock N Roll Nigger.” “Jesus died for somebody’s sins,” she moaned into the microphone as a man stood on a chair in the audience, arms open wide in imitation of Christ. Then she changed the familiar words “but not mine” and held her own arms aloft. “Why not mine?” she crooned ever so sweetly. Why not indeed?This article appears in August 4 • 2000.