New Wave Outpost Forum

Nov 30 and Dec 01 2005.
In Brooklyn at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music)
I'll be at the Dec 01 show[:)]
PS interview from New York magazine, 12 05 05

http://www.nymetro.com/nymetro/arts/music/pop/15172/

The BEST musical performance of the year!!!
And I've seen Gang of Four, New Order, Dragonette, Kraftwerk and Bauhaus as well this year.
The complete Horses lp, plus a second set of bonus songs. including a cover of "Are You Experienced", Pissing in the River, Dancing Barefoot, People have the Power, and Rock and Roll Nigger (Blir put that one in your early morning iPod menu[:D]).

Have to add that it was World AIDS Day, and Patti spoke eloquently about this, and mentioned Robert Mappelthorpe, her friend/muse/?lover who, as you know, died from AIDS.

FWIW- I swear to God I saw Bono in the expensive balcony seats.

Reuters Review of 11/30/05 show

Rock Icon Patti Smith Still at top of Her Form

By Frank Scheck

That Patti Smith has evolved from punk pioneer to rock legend was
made obvious by the location of this 30th anniversary performance of
her groundbreaking and recently re-released album "Horses." Rather
than in a club like CBGB or one of its larger equivalents, the show
was presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Opera House, a venue
more frequently inhabited by the likes of the Royal Shakespeare
Company and the Mark Morris Dance Company.

The performance well demonstrated that though she is pushing 60 and
sports gray hair instead of black, Smith has lost none of her
ferocious power. From the first line of the famous album opener
"Gloria" -- "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine" --
to the
mournful closing notes of "Elegie," she and her band delivered a
performance of blazing intensity that actually managed to outshine
the original.

Clad in similar style to the album cover photo of her shot by Robert
Mapplethorpe, Smith both re-created and expanded upon the music.
Original Patti Smith Group members Lenny Kaye (guitar) and Jay Dee
Daugherty (drums) were augmented by Television guitarist Tom
Verlaine, Tony Shanahan on keyboards and typically energetic bassist
Flea, who also contributed an impressive trumpet solo to "Elegie."

From its use of spoken-word poetry and excerpts from rock classics
to its prefiguring of new wave and punk, "Horses" displayed a
stylistic breadth and imagination that was perfectly conveyed here.
And though Smith might be at the age where she has to reach for her
glasses before delivering some of the denser lyrical material (a
gesture that amusingly garnered cheers from the largely boomer
crowd), she had no difficulty recapturing the music's manic energy.

After the formal delivery of the album in its entirety, Smith and
company rewarded the audience with a lengthy second segment featuring
impassioned renditions of such classics as "Southern Cross," "Because
the Night," "Dancing Barefoot" and "Rock and Roll Nigger."
The performances well justified a well-timed outburst from one irate
patron: "They should have put you in the hall of fame, Patti!"

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

[quote][i]Originally posted by schwenko[/i]
<br>The performances well justified a well-timed outburst from one irate
patron: "They should have put you in the hall of fame, Patti!"
[/quote]
You didn't get escorted out did you Schwenko, you rebel! [:D]

from the Decemebr 02, 2005 NY Times:

Celebrating 'Horses' and Everything After
By LAURA SINAGRA

Patti Smith appeared at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Wednesday dressed as her younger self in Robert Mapplethorpe's cover photo for her seminal 1975 album, "Horses." This year the punk godmother has celebrated the record's 30th anniversary by playing it at the Meltdown Festival in London, and now here.

Aside from the gray hair, Ms. Smith's spindly, androgynous figure - still kinetic and fist-pumping - appears uncannily unchanged. Her use of space is still pure Antonin Artaud and Theater of Cruelty, with its emphasis on convulsive rigor. With the first salvo from the album-opening "Gloria" - "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine" - her full-throated alto pushed to the corners of the room. When the beat kicked in, she took the place to catharsis with easy command.

The band matched her thrust. The writer and guitarist Lenny Kaye, a longtime co-conspirator, led the reconstituted Patti Smith Group, which was absent Ivan Kral and Richard Sohl, who is deceased, and included three newcomers: the keyboardist-guitarist Tony Shanahan, the bassist Flea, and Ms. Smith's fellow punk pioneer, the guitarist Tom Verlaine.

If the transition from "Gloria" to the reggae vamp "Redondo Beach" felt like an energy dip, Ms. Smith tore through the later "Land" suite, a surreal conflation of sex, violence, teeny-bopper dance crazes, and rock 'n' roll redemption. But this time, as Ms. Smith riffed on global destruction, the "sea of possibility" that the song envisions took on a more menacing churn.

Life will do that. Since 1975, Ms. Smith has experienced, among other things, a serious neck injury from a stage fall; an extended break from music; a marriage to Fred (Sonic) Smith of the MC5, and his subsequent death; the raising of their two children; the deaths of a brother, her mother and some close friends; and a move into political activism.

After dispensing with "Horses," when Ms. Smith returned for the night's second set, dressed in a cropped leather jacket, she seemed years younger. This portion's honest exploration of more communal concerns was raw and fresh, if less excitingly brash.

Strumming acoustic guitars on "Southern Cross," the whip-thin Mr. Kaye and Ms. Smith conjured the aggression of mating mantises. Later songs cycled through faith and doubt. The doo-wop plea for mercy "We Three" was countered by the love-submission anthem "Dancing Barefoot" and the ultimately hopeful "My Blakean Year."

The show climaxed with a speed-metal version of the still-problematic "Rock 'n' Roll Nigger." This bid to reclaim a slur has always seemed like overreach. The song's sentiment, though, continues a thread extending from the working-class rant of Ms. Smith's first single through her current Katrina-aid advocacy, a belief that renewal can rise out of abject wreckage.