Patti Smith review – utterly transformed by the power of music

Brighton Dome
Whether she’s dancing, eulogising Kurt Cobain or covering Lana Del Rey, Smith remains such a compelling and moving live performer

Four songs into her set, Patti Smith starts to cry: “First tears of the tour!” she sighs, wiping her eyes. They’re occasioned by the sound of the audience singing along to her 1978 track Ghost Dance, a sound you would assume she’s heard before in the years since she wrote it. Perhaps in Brighton they are even more reverential than those Smith usually faces, 60 years on from her debut single. The first but not the last loud scream of “I love you Patti!” rings out before she’s even played a note; people throw roses and leave cards on the stage.

The object of their affection should, by rights, have long ascended into the realm of legendhood, where people buy tickets simply to be in proximity to an icon and the music is a secondary consideration. At 77, however, Smith remains a genuinely compelling performer. Music seems to have a transformative effect on her. Between songs she’s far goofier than her reputation as the epitome of New York punk cool suggests, but once her band kick into the Velvet Underground-ish chug of Nine or a surging version of Pissing in a River, she appears to be genuinely transported. She dances with an enviable insouciance, and as her eulogy for Kurt Cobain, About a Boy, collapses into abstraction, she appears to be close to speaking in tongues.