Patti Smith at BAM

A blog reader was kind enough to send us this report of last night's sold-out Patti Smith performance at BAM.

She and her band performed her "Horses" album (for which she wore her usual white shirt, tie, black pants, boots), took an intermission, then did a second set. So the concert began with, "Jesus died for somebody's sins / But not mine," from her version of "Gloria"--which was absolutely fantastic--and then just kept getting better. The band--Lenny Kaye, Jay Dee Daugherty, Tony Shanahan, Tom Verlaine and Flea, outdid themselves.  The concert ended with a song Smith wrote for Robert Mapplethorpe for his 40th birthday, as a nod to all the people who have died in the years since "Horses" was produced.
At one point she ushered a ten-year-old boy up onto the stage from the front row to play electric guitar with the band, facing an opera house full of dancing, shouting, very enthusiastic grownups.
She had to use reading glasses to read her poems and she just about lost her voice, but she still has all her moves, and she reminded the audience that even if it turns out that the forces of evil win in the end, we can at least make their lives miserable while they're doing it.
Most of the proceeds are going to aid Katrina victims. (Photo: Patti in her room at the Chelsea.)