Patti Smith3Arena, Dublin4 stars: ★★★★☆
Horses: 50th anniversary
As the harvest supermoon announces itself over Dublin, Patti Smith rides into town. It’s unseasonably warm. The weekend storm has cleared. Manchán Magan’s funeral has preoccupied a large community of artists in the city. There’s a sense of openness, rawness, and lust for connection in the air. It’s a day to celebrate prophets and legends.
Into this context, drops a recital of a seminal record by an artist who, above all else, is herself. In September of 1975, Smith walked into Electric Lady studios in Greenwich Village, and recorded a classic album, 43 minutes and 10 seconds of a singular transmission, which, like all seminal albums, influences hugely but cannot be replicated. Half a century later, the famous Mapplethorpe portrait snapped in Sam Wagstaff’s apartment that became the artwork for Horses, bookends the stage on the 3Arena’s screens.
As Smith and her band take the floor, the cheers rise. The stage design is thankfully minimal, as stark as her sound, devoid of corniness or superfluous flourishes. It is the timeless cool of monochrome: a band dressed in black and white, against a black backdrop, lit in white and some blues, filmed in black and white.
Gloria beings. “She’s like a cailleach”, someone in the crowd remarks. Smith’s voice – a switchblade prising open a tin of molasses – remains peerless. As a performer, her snarl is weighted with charm. She is solid, energetic, gentle, and here.
Sipping from a white mug after Redondo Beach, she says this is the band’s first “job” on this tour, “and I couldn’t think of a better place than Dublin to start.” Decades in, Smith possesses that rare quality where no matter what year she’s witnessed in, she appears always at the peak of her intrigue and powers.
Songs contextualised with stories of their origins and inspiration, the awesomeness of the album, played through, is beautifully exposed. She shouts out Sinéad O’Connor and Shane MacGowan, and later, a special moment is reserved for the late promoter John Reynolds, whom Smith recalls gifted her a signed Samuel Beckett book.
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Break It Up is brilliant. Land is rip-roaring. Allen Ginsberg’s Footnote to Howl finds its place. Fists are raised. Upon Horses’ conclusion, the first of multiple standing ovations springs up.
This being the first stop on the tour, it’s understandable that there’s a sense the band is feeling its way into the vibe. A couple of technical issues and fiddling with a temperamental amp threaten to suck the energy a little, but Smith just about keeps the tightrope taught. A sound audience offers encouragement and appreciation all the way, a charming crowd to spend Monday night in the company of.
When Horses has run its own well-known course, Smith runs off briefly, returning with off-Horses hits. There’s also Peaceable Kingdom, a song written for the American activist Rachel Corrie, killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza in 2003. In the crowd, a Palestine flag is held aloft.
Finally, Glen Hansard appears as part of the closing number, People Have The Power. “Use your voice,” Smith roars, forever using her own.