Patti Smith’s Transcendental Blues

The Patti Smith Quartet, Piazza San Marco, Venice, 7 July 2025

What a magical setting for a magical concert. After days of extreme heat and warnings of thunderstorms, the sky turns a glorious blue, the temperature drops and a gentle breeze drifts through the historic square, blowing aside the tourists and those drinking overpriced coffee and meals round the edges. And for once there is no string quartet playing endless identikit waltzes outside Caffé Florian and no squadrons of pigeons divebombing restaurant tables and paving slabs for prime pastry crumbs. Saint Mark’s Square feels very different to the tourist hellhole it usually is.

Two screens flicker into life, the band come on stage, the supposedly seated crowd rushes forward to empty seats or the front of the stage and the music begins. ‘Grateful’ eases us into a world of hopeful expectations and the ability to change, because ‘It will all come out fine’… And it does. Patti Smith is in fine voice, the band are musically accomplished and able to adjust to the ebb and flow of Smith’s music, the changing dynamics and the political statements, prayers and fairy tales that punctuate the set.

‘Ghost Dance’ is up second, with a dedication to the Native American Indians that the USA stole their land from and have oppressed, discriminated against and killed since. It’s done in an almost acoustic format, as is ‘1959’, Smith’s song about ‘the best of times / the worst of times’ which considers the pros and cons of post-war America, its appropriation and abuse of the word ‘freedom’, the exile of the Dalai Lama from Tibet, and the struggle against sexuality and censorship by the Beats. I confess it still feels rather jumbled and isn’t a favourite of mine. Next up is a cover of Steve Earle’s ‘Transcendental Blues’, a country-tinged song of despair, lost faith and the desire for transcendence:

     In the darkest hour of the longest night
     If it was in my power I’d step into the light
     Candles on the altar, penny in your shoe
     Walk upon the water – transcendental blues.

Smith may not be a punk priestess any more but she is still searching for something, still prepared to speak out, though at a lower volume, a slower pace and with more finesse. During the evening, she namechecks two popes, the Dalai Lama, Mother Earth and Saint Francis (whose famous prayer is read twice, once in Italian, once in English) during the evening, and speaks out against corrupt leaders, warmongers and those who refuse to use their own voices to resist the wrongs in the world at the moment. As Earle says and Smith sings ‘If I had it my way, everything would change’.

Of course, music can’t change the world but it can change individuals. And it is individuals – eccentrics, prophets, visionaries and truthsayers – we respond to, although we don’t always realise or admit it. ‘My Blakean Year’ is about a pilgrimage towards somewhere, something or somewhere else, which resolves in an encounter with and embrace of ‘the Mercy’, an undefined positivity or spirit. It may be this same spirit that is referred to in Smith’s cover of Charlotte Day’s ‘Work’ which is about commitment and making relationships work. Of course it could just be about humans in love…

The spiritual theme continues with ‘Nine’, this time with a dreamy story as a spoken introduction – which I’ve always though of as Smith channelling Leonard Cohen (‘ Night a nine of diamonds / A woman lay and cries / At the sister of Mercy / On a Sabbath day’) but it’s also where the band come more to the fore, with echoes of Television’s twin guitars and the Doors’ raga-jazz tangles of intertwining melodies. Jackson Smith, Patti Smith’s son, is a formidable and accomplished player, Seb Rochford a persuasive yet restrained drummer, whilst Tony Shanahan is a superb keyboardist and bass player who also provides backing vocals. A fifth member of the Quartet (!) also sometimes played second guitar but I can’t find his name anywhere!

The musical complexity and increased pace and volume continues through ‘Dancing Barefoot’ and a long version of ‘Beneath the Southern Cross’, with lots of glorious instrumental interludes, and then Smith allows the Italian Summer night back in and quietens the crowd with a poem for Pope Jean-Paul 1st, before ‘Peaceable Kingdom’ asks ‘Why must we hide all these feelings inside?’, optimistically predicting that ‘Lions and lambs shall abide’ but also pleading and hoping that ‘ Maybe, one day, we’ll be strong enough / To build it back again / Build the peaceable kingdom’.

The song gently twists into a brief part of ‘People Have the Power’ before the set continues with ‘Pissing in a River’ from Radio Ethiopa, a dark night of the soul song where the desire for change and love and a future is futile, and the singer has been abandoned. She urges whoever has gone to ‘Come back / come back / come back’ and pleads with them: ‘Don’t turn your back now I’m talking to you’. It is a call out to the audience too, to not break the connection between band and audience, audience and audience, music and the human, history and the past.

Perhaps it is also now a song of loss for her dead husband, Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith, who she tells us she wrote the final song’s lyrics for. It is, of course, ‘Because the Night’, her lyrics over Springsteen’s tune, and it is of course played at full volume and speed, with the audience up and dancing and Patti Smith beaming out at her congregation. There is a token disappearance of the band before a riproaring version of ‘People Have the Power’ as a sing along anthem for the encore.

I’ve never seen Patti Smith live before, although I did hear her practicing a few houses away in a valley in Tuscany a few years back, and I didn’t know what to expect. She has always been a peculiar mix of mystic and rebel, with some of her music veering too far from punk and rock towards the blues or mainstream American rock’n’roll (such as Bruce Springsteen). Somehow, however, her passion and straightforward presence brings it all to life onstage. Of course, playing in Venice helps; of course, her current band of musicians helps (although I wish Lenny Kaye had been present); and of course a careful selection from her back catalogue along with some surprising cover choices helps too.

Mostly, however, it is being Patti Smith that does the trick. She is still strong, individual and committed, and wants us to be too. She is still taking on the world, issue by issue; still encouraging us to join her, to think, demand change; and of course to sing and dance with her and each other. In her trademark dark suit, long grey hair blowing in the breeze, surrounded by history and myths, Patti Smith seems invincible and visionary, a dreamer and contemporary mystic; a pied piper leading us to a utopia we ought to be able to create together.

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Rupert Loydell

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