patti smith reviews

Metropol, Pittsburgh (July 10th 2000)
By Ray Beiersdorfer (with Susie)

Patti seemed much much more happier when she walked onto the stage and the crowd's loving and joyous response seemed to increase her happiness. She commented several times how she was having a great time in Pittsburgh and her last words as she walked off stage were "I had a great time." She looked almost blushing to me, Susie said she looked like she had butterflies in her stomach. The club is a cavernous space that has been decked out in all its post-modern industrial chrome glory. Susie found the space much more pleasant than the dark, box-canyon like Odeon where she played on Saturday night in Cleveland. I appreciated the adequately working ventilation system, the room was not that smoky. The stage had bunches of fake white roses and those Mexican/Catholic Virgin of Guadeloupe candles all over amps and other flat surfaces. The white sheets for the Retinal Stimulations were a little droopy which actually made the projected visuals less distracting. Patti walked on stage wearing her glasses and carrying her clarinet and a book of her poetry. She started reading Piss Factory. While she was reading she had her right hand in the pocket of her loose fitting jeans pumping in rhythm to her words. It sure looked like someone jacking off, but I don't think she was.

Besides the jeans she wore a rust colored T-shirt with a hole exposing her navel , her trade-mark black sportscoat, and short side-zippered black boots with red socks (one sock was thrown to the crowd during Dancing barefoot). While I'm on the subject of clothes, Patti mentioned having a hard time finding a Laundromat in Pittsburgh and how she found one on East Carson street. The rust colored T-shirt was probably one of her favorites as she wore it first, in Cleveland she was probably out of clean clothes and grabbed a shirt from the souvenir stand. The rest of the group just stood waiting during Piss factory. I hoped they would start playing but they stood waiting for their cue to Dead City. They were really rockin'. Patti introduced Redondo Beach as a "little song for the girls" Lenny and Tony did a great job on almost Beach Boys like backing vocals. After waiting underground Patti asked "Any one from Oakmont?" She's been to Oakmount to see a great golf course. (Her deceased husband, Fred Sonic Smith was an Arnold Palmer fanatic) It was closed when she went there and looked like a dead field but it was designed by a great mind to test man's particular skill. People started laughing and Patti responded, "you're sitting in fuckin' Pittsburgh laughing at Oakmont!"

She commented how she liked Pittsburgh and listed off cool things like the Warhol museum. She joked that's what I do, I travel around the country and compare all the cities. This was the start of about an hour-long between-song Pennsylvania geography lesson. Anyone from Bethlehem? Any one from Breezewood? Seven Springs? Uniontown? Someone shouted out about some town with a big statue of Paul Bunyon and Patti responded that there has been a rash of Paul Bunyon statue ax steeling going on in the country and how the woman's town better protect Paul's ax. She liked Paul Bunyon and his dog Tide. When she finally ascertained he had a blue ox named babe she said, "I went to public school and the way they teach American History is a little twisted". She really seemed at ease and having a good time jabbering with the crowd, "everywhere I look you got a fuckin bridge!, I like bridges, I don't mean the card game I mean the structures." Beneath the Southern Cross was next. Tony's harmonizing during that song just blows me away. She introduced Ghost Dance as a little song for the Monangahella River. It had Lenny Kaye and Oliver Ray on acoustic guitars. Anyone from Germantown? was her last city request. Since Germantown is on the opposite side of the state she commented that she was looking holistically at Pennsylvania as a state, sort of local nationalism. That ended the geography lesson and Patti got down to business. During Dancing Barefoot the roadie stumbled just a little bringing out a heavy wooden desk chair. Patti threw her read sock into the crowd. The crowd really got into Summer cannibals, All that Glitters and Because the Night.

Like in Cleveland, Wild Leaves featured Patti pouring pink rose petals over herself. Gung Ho and People Have the Power ended the pre-encore portion of the show. The segue between the two didn't blow me away like it did the first time because I was expecting it. When Patti came back out she said "Pittsburgh, I had a really great time. Here's one for everyone, No, here's one for Willy Stargell" (a former Pittsburgh Pirate baseball star from when Patti was a girl). The song was Be My Baby by the Ronettes. They played it straight up and it was wonderful. I knew the group had played it and I was hoping to hear it. I was thrilled. Patti did this little curtsey thing with her bluejeans near the end. She wound things up with Pissing in a River, Rock 'n Roll Nigger/G-L-O-R-I-A and "I had a great time".