Patti Smith’s May 3rd performance at Amoeba Hollywood was kept on the down-low. . . until Jay Leno happened to mention on The Tonight Show that the fierce and perpetually relevant Patti Smith would be performing a live set at the store, triggering an avalanche of phone calls and waves of fans on Thursday evening.  The night before, the 60-year-old recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Smith had played the Roxy in support of her new album of covers, Twelve.

Up on the mezzanine, the waiting crowd varied as much as it did closer to the stage—tiny children and young punks in tight jeans with carefully distressed accessories tucked themselves under the listening stations at my feet to watch through the railing, a woman with stark white hair and a slight German accent talked to a young man to my right about a show she had seen in the early 70s, and to my left, a man in expensive shoes barked into his cell phone to a friend he was attempting to lure to the show (“she’s innovative, startling”).

Patti Smith and her band took the stage to a swell of applause, and a handful of fans in the audience jumped up and down with excitement before she had even reached the microphone.  After a false start due to honing the sound board (during which she reminded us that sound checks “are a delicacy in many countries,” one of the many very funny comments Smith made between songs), Smith and her band swayed into a catchy and nonchalant take on Tears for Fears smash hit “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.”  Smith addressed the critics who had panned her rendition after she sung the final growling lines.  For those who claimed the vocals are too perfect, she admitted that “no, I just fucked it up when I was younger,” earning large laughs from the crowd.

Tony Shanahan joined her on keyboards and backing vocals for the next song, a soulful version of Neil Young’s “Helpless.”   She transitioned to “Redondo Beach,” a song from her first album, 1975’s Horses.  After apologizing for what she was sure was going to be “really, really bad” (she was wrong!), the band began the hypnotic build-up to an idiosyncratic and enchanting cover of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit.”  Lenny Kaye pushed his guitar into yips and screeches, Jay Dee Daugherty rattled a tambourine and a pair of maracas, and Smith wove a strange tail of coffee and a pair of massive white bunnies on leashes.  Midway through the song, Smith unleashed the formidable roar of her voice, jumped down from the stage, and led the crowd through a yell-along for the “feed your head” chorus. 

Smith picked up her guitar for “My Blakean Year,” from 2004’s Trampin'.  “It’s ‘07 and it feels like ’74,” she said, telling us the story of her first trip to California (where her show at Rather Ripped Records in Berkeley was attended by a child-size version of one Amoebite) and giving a shout-out to the remaining independent record stores, a comment that earned some of the louder audience roars of the evening.  Andy Paley (who had also joined the band the night before at the Roxy) jumped from instrument to instrument as needed.  Smith next played one of the “about 72 bonus tracks” that didn’t quite make it to Twelve:  a delicate and sublimely restrained cover of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day.”  Smith grabbed a clarinet for Jimi Hendrix’s “Are You Experienced?”—when she sang, she held the instrument up against her shoulder like a spear, an image that fit with the aggressive and grand reworking of the song. 

For their final song, Smith chose Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”  Slowed down to deliberate individual notes by Lenny Kaye and Tony Shanahan, the crowd waited in silence until Patti’s first line revealed the identity of the song and then burst into a short enthusiastic round of applause.  Stripped of its noise and unbridled rage, Smith exposed the bleak apocalyptic frame of the hit, singing a song both completely unlike and utterly familiar to the one I’ve heard so many times.  It was like seeing a creature I thought I knew in every way only to be introduced to its bones, its sinew, and its power anew.  The anger of the song remained intact, but Smith tempered Cobain’s fury with the mournful knowledge of experience, adding a desperate delicacy to the lyrics.  An incantatory poem midway increased the depth of feeling, and by the end of the song, the audience, along with Patti and Lenny, sang along in the same fever of emotion.

After a brief break, Smith and the band signed copies of the new album and custom-made limited-edition posters created specifically for the Amoeba event.  The line stretched around the store but the band remained personable, warm, and funny even to the final fans.  I shook Patti’s cool strong hand and followed her listening instructions for Twelve that night.  Listen to the album a few times.  Do your research (the liner notes are small diary-like entries and well worth purchasing the album for alone).  Put it on before you go to bed and see what hops and rages and graces across your sleep.  Sweet dreams.