Patti Smith at the London Palladium: transcendent rock ritual with an awkward conclusion

“Jesus died for somebody’s sins… but NOT MINE!”

It’s one of the most compelling opening lines in rock history, emblazoned here across numerous T-shirts worn by the crowd, and greeted when Patti Smith first intones it at the top of the show with an ecstatic roar from the Palladium stalls. As her trusty lieutenant Lenny Kaye emphasises in the current issue of Uncut, “it’s not a rejection of Christ or what he stands for, it’s an assertion of responsibility.” In other words, everything is there for the taking if only you have the courage to reach out and grab it.

It’s why, 50 years on, Horses is still such a potent experience, its poetic epiphanies crystallising the idea of rock’n’roll as personal salvation. Evidently, Patti Smith’s passion for this manifesto remains undimmed. Her silver hair turned iridescent in the spotlight, tonight she resembles a celestial visitor, here to tell us all that paradise is within our grasp. At the same time, she’s an impish, vivacious presence, keen to do the watusi and have some fun.

In this day and age, it’s actually a treat to see a great rock band silhouetted on a black stage, lit by pure white lights: no backdrop, no lightshow, no nonsense. Guitarist Lenny Kaye and drummer Jay Dee Daugherty remain from the original Horses line-up, providing a solid throughline to CBGB, 1975; as for guitarist Jackson Smith, this music is literally in his blood. “Gloria” ramps up quickly into a fist-pumping anthem of release – taut, energised, electric.

Patti’s enthusiastic vamping rescues “Redondo Beach” from cod-reggae purgatory, while “Free Money” retains its sharp, bitter edge. But it’s on the epic “Birdland” where Smith really comes alive, yanking its harrowing narrative violently into the present by yelling, “We do not want a corrupt, dictator, bullshit fucking president!” At which point she throws down the notebook she’s been reading from, spits theatrically on the floor, puts her glasses back in her pocket, and calmly sings the shamanic doo-wop coda.

“Now we are going to flip over the record,” says Smith mischievously, as though all they are doing is simply recreating Horses note-for-note. In fact they play fast and loose with the running order, slipping “Elegie” (dedicated here to Jeff Beck) in earlier so they can climax with the astonishing “Land”, the phantasmagorical tale of a life saved by rock’n’roll.

“Half a century ago,” riffs Patti, retooling it on the fly as a story about the birth of British punk, “Johnny walked the streets of London wondering who the fuck he was… until the people gave him the energy… for half a fucking century!” As Smith circles back to the album’s immortal opening line, she pauses for a moment at the lip of the stage and flexes her biceps like a champion weightlifter, the conduit of a surging, unstoppable life-force.

After the interval, the band return without Patti to play a medley of songs from that other great mid-’70s New York rock landmark, Marquee Moon. If anyone’s going to cover Television it should probably be their “sister band”, and they make a pretty decent fist of it, with Jackson Smith ably tracing Tom Verlaine’s quicksilver Telecaster runs from beneath his flat cap. Sadly though, “Marquee Moon” peters out before Patti can charge on and start wailing about lightning striking itself, which feels like an opportunity missed. 

Instead, she rejoins the band to snarl hilariously through The Byrds’ “So You Want To Be A Rock ’n’ Roll Star – “Was it all a strange game? You’re a little insane!” – which serves to slyly dismantle her own legend (and makes the show’s eventual finale all the more incomprehensible). Perhaps you might expect the ‘punk poet laureate’ to be a somewhat precious performer, but quite the opposite. Smith is smiley, relatable and particularly sweet when telling the story about how the lyrics of “Because The Night” were written while anxiously awaiting a late-night phonecall from her future husband, Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith. 

Touchingly, the show ends with another Smith family member onstage, as daughter Jesse arrives to play keyboards. But then Patti risks undoing all the goodwill she’s accrued over the previous two hours by bringing out auxiliary guitarist Johnny Depp. It’s a baffling misjudgement. 

For a start, he adds nothing musically – and dressed ostentatiously in a fedora and an assortment of tie-dye rags, he inevitably serves to draw attention away from the show’s real star. But Depp is also a hugely divisive character, for obvious reasons. Smith’s traditional set-closer “People Have The Power” is always likely to lack its usual unifying qualities when there is a woman stood behind you shouting “Fuck off, Johnny!” throughout the song.

Smith has proven tonight that Horses remains a magnificent hymn to personal empowerment; and that rock’n’roll is a spirit of self-determination that burns within us all, not just an excuse for celebrities behaving badly. It’s strange that she would momentarily forget her own lesson.

SET 1
Gloria
Redondo Beach
Free Money
Birdland
Kimberly
Break It Up
Elegie
Land: Horses / Land Of A Thousand Dances / Gloria (reprise)
SET 2
Television medley
So You Want To Be A Rock ‘n’ Roll Star
Dancing Barefoot
Peaceable Kingdom
Because The Night
ENCORE
People Have the Power