Patti Smith and Her Band Rocked Amoeba Hollywood

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