The Patti Smith Quartet, Vicar Street, Dublin, Ireland, 27 & 28 June 2024
If she has taught us nothing else she has taught us how to continue to walk with the dead.
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As Patti Smith made her entrance onstage for the first of her two sold-out nights at Dublin’s Vicar Street, she made a point of placing her foot on the monitor and rolling up her pants legs to reveal a pair of white high top Pro Keds. She’d later explain that she was wearing sneakers because the stage was carpeted and she couldn’t move well in her usual regulation boots. I know you’re probably going to think that none of this is a big deal but what we refer to around here as “The Uniform” isn’t trivial. But the sneakers delighted her and the audience’s warmth delighted her and she giggled and had fun with the crowd and the band. Night one was definitely a special moment from end to end, but it’s not like Friday night wasn’t great as well, just felt a little more uneven in spots.
These two nights in Dublin were the second and third of her 2024 European outing, and the setlist has been not so much rewritten as gently rearranged, like plumping up the couch pillows for your guests. I go to these shows because it is just what I do – you are a Patti Smith fan, you go see her play – but it is less about chasing a setlist than it is about the quality of the energy, the overall theme, the telling and the retelling of stories. And I think, a lot, about how Patti Smith commands a stage, and how that can shift and change show to show but also song to song, and also even within the same song. Whether you saw her 20 years ago or 40 years ago you’d still recognize it, it would all still feel familiar. She has an easy command, an inherent comfort, but also an energy that requests – not demands – focus. (“We are all free,” to quote her, even though it’s not about this exactly.)
Back in February when I was queuing for the Lunar New Year show at the Bowery Ballroom a friend said, “None of this is guaranteed,” and it was a simple statement meant literally at the time but it’s something I keep coming back to. It is Patti’s age, it is all of our health, it is the state of the world, it is even as simple as our abilities to travel any distance, even if it’s just across town, and be able to go to a show. None of this is guaranteed.
