Patti Smith Won't Give Up

The Mother Earth of punk rock returned to the city of her birth Saturday night and from the opening notes of "Frederick" she sent a jolt through the SRO crowd at the Park West. Headlining a Hopefest benefit for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, the 63-year-old Smith strolled onstage, her long scraggly hair looking surprisingly restrained beneath a knitted cap. But the smooth melody of "Frederick" led to a haunting "Redondo Beach," and when Smith's band kicked into the opening build up of "Free Money" the energy surged and she ripped her cap off and her hair was hanging free and loose, and that's how the rest of this top-notch rock concert went.



Smith occasionally played acoustic rhythm guitar, but mainly she sang, and she was in great voice, barely discernable from her 35-year-old debut Horses. Her long-time band is tight and that enables Smith to be as comfortable onstage as any performer can be. The music moves through her, and she moves freely with it, dancing, swaying, arms waving and reaching, fists pumping and punching, fingers flicking and grasping in a sometimes delicate, sometimes raging dance.

Along with better-known pieces "Dancing Barefoot," Because the Night," "People Have the Power," and her distinctive set-closing punk-rock version of Them's "Gloria," Smith hip-checked her catalog all night, plucking "Ask the Angels," and "Pissing in a River," from Radio Ethiopia ; "Paths That Cross" from Dream of Life; and "Beneath the Southern Cross" and "Wing" from Gone Again. With a nod to poet Jim Carroll she put her own Ramone's-style spin on "People Who Died," possibly the funniest song about death, which Smith imbued with a sense of sadness and loss but punctuated with the hopeful cry "You will be remembered!" And with her encore of the O'Jay's "Love Train," which she introduced as her "song for 2010," she ripped her heart from her sleeve and put it straight into her mouth, imploring "Join hands" and "Everybody wants to be happy," and urging "Don't give up! Don't give up! Don't give up!"

Patti Smith in all her G-L-O-R-Y.

And, she is without a doubt the best spitter in the history of rock and roll.