Patti has the Power

[Andrew F Wilson <andrewfwilson>]

Patti has the power 
by Molloy Woodcraft
The Observer, Sunday, 26 June 2005

Thirty years after she burst on to the New York music scene, three
events at Patti Smith's highly personal Meltdown festival show her to
be an inspired curator and still very much a star

Television
The Coral Sea
Stand Bravely Brothers
South Bank, London SE1 

Number one on everyone's list at Meltdown this year was its curator
Patti Smith's live performance last night - the first ever - of her
album Horses, with a band headed by John Cale. But Television's
two-night stint came a close second in the New York punk rock hero
stakes.

The crowd at the intimate gig are of all ages, clear testament to the
magnetic and enduring appeal of the band's material. The musicians
amble on to the stage like the old mates they are and, despite their
craggy appearance and the way they seem to move independently, they
gel beautifully. Bass player Fred Smith lays down big, solid lines
behind Verlaine and Richard Lloyd's riffs.

The two guitarists are perfect counterweights, Verlaine providing
chugging backings to Lloyd's tumbling, semi-psychedelic lines. It's
interesting how their longer numbers appear to be heading ever closer
to prog: I suppose that's what you get for playing the same material
together over and over for nigh on three decades.

If the set falls down, it is over Verlaine's voice; granted the sound
is poor in the QEH but he doesn't seem to stretch himself until the
end. That said, 'Marquee Moon' and 'Little Johnny Jewel' are storming.

And then there's the encore. More than any other curator since the
Meltdown began in 1994, Patti Smith has involved herself in her
events. Hers has been the impetus behind the themed evenings such as
Songs of Innocence, the tribute to Wiliam Blake, and Songs of
Experience, the one for Jimi Hendrix, which closes the festival this
evening, and she has been so much more inventive than many who have
come before her. Perhaps that is because she is more than just a
musician; poetry is as much her motivation as music. Here, she comes
back on with the band to perform her own poem about Ophelia. If she
arrives looking kittenish, she soon works up some thunder over the
group's spiky rock. Her voice is simply brilliant.

I bump into a friend after the next night's event who tells me she was
prompted to drive up to London without a ticket when she heard Smith
on the radio saying that it was the night she was most looking forward
to.

The performance is to be a reading of excerpts from Smith's long
elegiac poem The Coral Sea, written for her late, great friend, the
photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. After a suitably hushed and intense
introductory half-hour with the singer Cat Power, Smith arrives on
stage with Kevin Shields, the rangy guitar star at the heart of indie
wonders My Bloody Valentine. The latter takes his place on a sofa at
the back of the stage, long legs splayed beneath a shabby standard
lamp as Smith takes her place at the microphone.

The extended nautical metaphor for Mapplethorpe's slow death plays out
against a film backdrop (by Jem Cohen) of gentle waves, scudding
clouds and a time-lapse seascape.

Shields, surrounded by effects pedals, rings great sheets of sound
from expensive-looking electric guitars beneath and, occasionally,
above (the sound in the QEH really is bad) Smith's declamations as we
move around an imaginary ship. It becomes quite mesmerising at times,
Shields's characteristic bending notes making you feel like the room
is moving out of shape. The pair finish up side by side on the sofa as
the sound dies away, heads down, lank hair over their eyes, Smith
grinning madly. When they depart hand in hand, they look for all the
world like mother and son.

For variety and star appeal, Stand Bravely Brothers, Smith's tribute
evening to Bertolt Brecht, is the midweek highpoint. Backed by the
London Sinfonietta (including James Crabb on accordion, who does a
brilliant solo turn on 'Solomon Song') under James Holmes, the
cavalcade of faces (and voices) runs from the diminutive, shouty Carla
Bozulich ('The Ballad of the Lily of Hell') to a wonderfully maudlin,
embittered Fiona Shaw on 'Song of the German Mother', from Tilda
Swinton's fine reading to Martha Wainwright's great wail of a
'Sailor's Tango'. It's a treat to see Sparks's Russell Mael glaring
over his shoulder from the piano, brother Ron's voice still strong and
able to reach a high falsetto for 'Mandalay Song', while the Finn
brothers' casting of themselves as brutish British squaddies in their
adaptation of 'Cannon Song' is darkly hilarious. There is a lovely
trio of numbers from the Tiger Lillies; Martyn Jacques's crazed
falsetto on 'Ballad of Sexual Dependency' draws a big hoot from the
crowd. And Antony is intriguing - distressing, even - with 'Surabaya
Jonny'.

The biggest cheer of the night goes out to Marc Almond, back on stage
after his terrible accident and looking on very good form. He's
brilliantly stagey on 'Bilbao Song', not so much camp as honest, and
ever so English. His arrival was treated to a standing ovation; the
long high note with which he closes 'What Keeps Mankind Alive' is
greeted with a huge roar.
And if Patti Smith fluffs her lines and notes on the two numbers she
tackles, you forgive her. You still feel like saying, Thanks, that was
a great idea, an inspired, inspiring evening.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1514543,00.html