Patti Smith at St. Andrew's

One of those goals I set for myself this year was to attend a few concerts (the non-Tilbrook kind). Last night, I kicked it old school (such a ridiculous phrase I just had to write it) and went to St. Andrew's on Congress in Detroit to see the legendary Patti Smith. Going into the show, I knew very little of her music, but I did know that she is a poet, had been on the cutting edge of the emergent US punk scene, and had married Fred Smith - guitarist from the legendary Detroit band the MC5. If you don't know the name of the band, you are likely to know their most famous lyric, "Kick out the jams motherfuckers." To be honest, I really only knew one song, "Because the Night," a song she had written with Bruce Springsteen and she recorded. Tickets were only $20, so I thought that was a bargain to see a legend and to hand out in St. Andrew's, so I dragged my girlfriend Laurie and we went.

We had dinner at Sweet Water Tavern. It's a BBQ place, so an odd choice for this beginning vegetarian. Luckily they had fish and chips on the menu, and it was quite delicious. From there, we walked across the street to St. Andrew's. All ticket holders were sent around to the back and sent down into the Shelter (oh my, those were the days) to wait to go up to the show. Considering that the gross majority of the audience consisted of aging punkers 40 or older, I'm sure we were sent in to save us from the nippy winter air.

I wasn't watching the time, but I figure we were in The Shelter for about 15 minutes before being sent up stairs to stake out a spot. At this point, my back started hurting quite badly and I truly thought that I wasn't going to make it to the concert. We eased our way over to the bar and at least I could brace myself against that for a while.

The opening act came on around 8:45. It was Patti's daughter and son-in-law. She played keyboards and he played vibraphone and sang. The music was remarkably lullabyesque and threatened to put us to sleep. From those around us, there was a general polite tolerance for the opening act. They seemed to play for about 45 minutes.

Finally, at 10, Patti Smith and her band hit the stage to thunderous. Much of the music was familiar to be, but I did not know the names. I just know that the woman on stage in the hate, long dark hair, man's sport coat, and t-shirt kicked ass. She told the story of how "Because the Night" came to be written and reason behind the line "love is a ring, the telephone." Apparently she sat up very late one night waiting for Sonic (Fred Smith) to call her, which he eventually did - five hours late. One surprise highlight for me was her cover of Jim Carrol's "People Who Died." I know that I haven't bounced and danced like that in forever.

The show ended with an amazing finale. She performed an astounding cover of "Gloria" which then merged into "People Have the Power." Throughout the evening, she exhorted us Detroiters to take back our city and to bring it out of these hard times.

The one funny crowd story I want to share involves some people we met and started to hang out with during the evening: two women and one man. At some point, I looked over at one of the women and she was talking with a young man who was, uh, um constructing some smoking material for her! I looked at someone who had squeezed in next to me and she looked at me and we both just smiled. I went back to enjoying the show and I could smell the smoking material to my right and I knew the transaction had been completed. The material had been passed off behind us when I noticed the bouncer coming our way. I tried to impede his progress, but he was a much bigger person than I and pushed right past me. He got to the guy (a stranger) who now had the smoking material and took him away. This is the funny part, ten minutes later, the smoking guy came back with a huge smile on his face. Apparently, he had been allowed to finish his smoking material and come back to the show with no further consequences.

Who doesn't love sex, drugs, and rock n' roll?