Appropriately enough, Wednesday night’s benefit tribute concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall in honor of pioneering musician, author and icon Patti Smith began with a poem.
Not just any poem: It was the first one she set to music, “Piss Factory,” recorded in 1974 at Electric Lady Studios, 50 blocks downtown from Carnegie Hall, and released as the B-side of her first single. It was delivered by the National’s Matt Berninger, who nervously stalked the stage, reading from sheets of paper he pulled out of his jacket pocket and discarded as he worked his way through the piece. Accompanied by the house band for the evening, led by longtime Patti Smith band member Tony Shanahan, Berninger’s hands were visibly shaking — but both that power and that fear fully inhabited the work. It was a brave choice and the bravery paid off. By the final lines, he had discarded his notes and faced the audience in triumph: “And I will travel light / oh, watch me now!”
And over the course of the next two-odd hours, those songs did indeed travel, carried by Bruce Springsteen, Michael Stipe, Karen O, Scarlett Johansen, Sean Penn, Kim Gordon, Maggie Rogers, Angel Olsen, Susanna Hoffs, with poetry readings from Sean Penn, Scarlett Johansson and Michael Shanahan and an ace house band featuring Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist and occasional Smith accompanist) Flea, Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench
The concert was the latest in this format presented by veteran promoter and Knitting Factory founder Michael Dorf, who has staged 20 of them since 2006’s inaugural Joni Mitchell tribute. Dorf opened the evening by reminding the audience that along with the historical significance of these shows, they’ve raised close to $2 million dollars for music education in schools. “Music education… is the first thing to go when budgets get tight and when people’s pocketbooks get tight,” Dorf told Variety. “I’ve remained true to this one cause, because it always gets sidestepped when there’s a tightening of the purse strings. I just wanted to stay consistent, because it is needed so badly.” Later in the evening, the fruits of that consistency were on display via an appearance from students from the Lower Manhattan Community Middle School, providing a perfectly polished and earnest version of Smith’s “Paths That Cross.”
The best moments in these benefits come from the artists who fully meet the moment — when the tribute artist is someone they hold dear and helped them to find their own voice; when the years they may have spent dreaming about this very moment finally find their reach their culmination. It is also a tremendous test of a writer’s material: how well it can stand up when others approach the work.
The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Karen O, draped in a black boa (which may have been a nod to Smith’s early days performing at downtown cabarets, or could have just been Karen O wanting to dress up for Carnegie Hall) was without a doubt born to sing the Van Morrison classic-turned-punk rock national anthem that is “Gloria,” and delivered not only a roaring rendition but also a thoroughly joyful one, grinning ear to ear the whole time. Likewise, Sharon Van Etten’s “Pissing in a River” filled every corner of Carnegie Hall, full of pathos and longing.
Allison Mosshart of the Kills belted “Ask the Angels” like she’d written it herself, capturing the song’s power and ebullience. Jesse Malin, who suffered a debilitating stroke in 2023, came out onstage in a wheelchair, stood up to deliver a razor-sharp and perfectly tuned version of “Free Money,” displaying the debt his singing style owes to Smith’s.
Glen Hansard brought only himself and some sheets of white bond paper and transformed 1996’s “Beneath the Southern Cross” — a literal vehicle of transubstantiation, and a brave choice, as it’s possibly the greatest songs from the second half of Smith’s career. Ben Harper’s intimate reading of “Ghost Dance” opened with an homage to Hendrix — one of Smith’s favorite musicians. He took advantage of the hall’s acoustics, dropping back from the mic to let his vocals echo, adding depth and another layer to the song, turning it into a number that also wouldn’t be out of place alongside his original material.
Michael Stipe, alongside Smith’s daughter Jesse on keyboards and guitarist Andy LeMaster, presented “My Blakean Year,” a deceptively simple, workman-like song that Patti Smith is fond of performing solo but that Stipe turned into a showstopper. He remains a compelling frontman and was in fine voice. Angel Olsen’s careful exploration of “Easter” (accompanied by a recitation from handwritten notes in her notebook) was unexpected, Susanna Hoffs’ pop-influenced interpretation of “Kimberly” was joyful, Courtney Barnett provided a no-nonsense rendition of “Redondo Beach” and the Kronos Quartet’s gave a stunning presentation of “Elegie.” Interpol’s Paul Banks pulled the most obscure choice of the night, a quiet duet on “Mother Rose” from 2004’s “Trampin’.” And the most curious addition to the lineup, Johnny Depp, delivered “Dancing Barefoot” with assistance from Mosshart and Shanahan.
And there was more poetry. Michael Shannon, who recently performed an unusual tribute tour by playing Stipe’s role in R.E.M. with members of the band (and on some nights, Stipe himself), presented a poem Smith had written about her former paramour Sam Shepard. Sean Penn read an excerpt from 2015’s M Train. Scarlett Johansen’s delivered heart-rending readings of letters Smith wrote to her friend and collaborator, Robert Mapplethorpe (co-star of her award-winning memoir, “Just Kids”), while filmmaker Jim Jarmusch appended his reading with a bonus poem by Smith’s beloved Arthur Rimbaud delivered off his phone, insisting that Rimbaud had, in fact, written it for Patti, but that the timelines got crossed. “He also texted me the English translation,” Jarmusch informed the audience, deadpan. Kim Gordon walked out with her own copy of Smith’s “Witt,” published in 1973, before generating some righteous noise on electric guitar, alongside experimental guitarist Bill Nace.
Throught\out the evening, the backing band was one of the strongest this event has ever staged, and a fantastic one by any standard. Led by Tony Shanahan, who’s been part of Patti’s band since her return to music in the mid-‘90s, starring himself, Flea and Tench along with studio veteran/current Rolling Stones drummer Steve Jordan and guitarist Charlie Sexton (Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello). These musicians are not just technically stellar but also possess a deep intuitive feel for the material.
Toward the end of the show, Maggie Rogers — a late replacement for Chrissie Hynde, whose appearance was canceled due to the fires at London’s Heathrow Airport — delivered a version of 1979’s “Frederick,” Smith’s tribute to her husband (then boyfriend) Fred “Sonic” Smith of the MC5. While her presentation at first felt a little overheated, one could argue that she taking the song to a different place, and actually in an arrangement that could have rivaled the chart success of “Because the Night,” which Smith herself has described as “my only hit.”
Indeed, the evening was so powerful that there wasn’t a single “Brooooooce!” heard all night. But as the evening wound down and every other performer had been checked off of the list, the audience rose to their feet and stayed there as a fit and tan Boss strode onstage, hair slicked back, Fender in hand, work clothes on.
He explained to the crowd, “If I had sung this song, it would not have been a hit. It needed her voice and her incredible lyrics, so Patti, I have to thank you so dearly for our one big hit together — thank you, darling.” With a call in the direction of Tench, who began those unmistakable intro notes, it was time for a stunning version of “Because the Night,” featuring two incisive, expansive guitar solos, as well as fiery interplay between Springsteen and Sexton.
Not every one of these tribute evenings includes an appearance from the honoree, but Patti was in the house all night, sitting in a dress circle box stage right along with her children.
The final performer was Smith and her band, and she walked out onstage hand and hand with Lenny Kaye, her friend and musical partner since the early 1970s. They were joined by longtime drummer Jay Dee Daugherty — who she called “my only drummer” — along with Shanahan, daughter Jesse Paris on keyboards and son Jackson on guitar.
Smith characteristically began by thanking all of the musicians and the people involved in the event, and noted that many of the songs had been written along with her bandmates (and that “People Have The Power” was a co-write with her late husband), before offering a newer poem, “Cry Humanity,” a lamentation and a cry of despair. This evening may have been a celebration, but Smith has never neglected her activism and was not going to start doing so now.
The band followed with “Peaceable Kingdom,” a song Smith wrote about the death of activist Rachel Corrie for 2004’s “Trampin’.” That song usually segues into a spoken word interlude from “People Have the Power” and it did here as well, before moving into the encore performance of that anthem, where all of the performers from the evening joined Smith and her bandmates onstage.
As the song wound down, it was both heartwarming and comical to watch this group of highly accomplished musicians cautiously take their places near Smith, who kept encouraging them to step forward. She held hands and pogoed with Karen O; she pulled one of the student musicians from Music Will into center stage; she grabbed Stipe and brought him to her mic. Throughout this chaotic finale, Flea played trumpet, Rogers stared (seemingly awestruck) at Springsteen, Kaye tried to get the audience to clap as the ASL interpreters joined the fracas. Smith kept trying to step away from the center mic but Kaye and Shanahan kept bringing her forward.
Finally, someone decided it was time to end the song, and a glowing, grinning Smith thanked the audience once again and left the stage.
When speaking with Michael Dorf before the show, he told Variety, “I want to make sure it is such a great [event]…Doing the Rolling Stones, or Bob Dylan, where I feel so disconnected from my hero, I wasn’t going to get any feedback. I know Patti, I hope to keep working with her in other contexts. There was a little more involvement, you would say, and paying attention to my work, which is both exciting but a little nerve wracking, you know, because I want it to be amazing and as good as possible. I want an A plus from the teacher.” From the audience, at least, a gold star for the night, no notes, but judging by Smith’s expression as she left the stage, she’d concur.
