Patti Smith Quartet
Pierre Boulez Saal
Berlin, Germany
October 11, 2023


1. crowd
2. Peacable Kingdom / People Have The Power
3. Ghost Dance
4. intro to Guiding Light
5. Guiding Light (Television cover)
6. Boy Cried Wolf
7. Nine
8. Dancing Barefoot
9. intro to Beneath The Southern Cross
10. Beneath The Southern Cross
11. band introduction
12. Fire (Jimi Hendrix cover, sung by Tony Shanahan)
13. chat, intro to My Blakean Year
14. My Blakean Year
15. All Along The Watchtower (Bob Dylan cover)
16. intro to After The Gold Rush, interruption
17. After The Gold Rush (Neil Young cover)
18. chat, intro to Grateful
19. Grateful
20. intro the Because The Night
21. Because The Night (for Fred)
22. crowd
23. intro to People Have The Power
24. People Have The Power


Band Members
Patti Smith - lead vocals, guitar
Jackson Smith - guitar
Tony Shanahan - bass, keyboard, vocals
Seb Rochford - drums


Recorded by: johnnyinthebasement
Lineage: SP-CMC-4U (AT U853s, 48v) > Zoom F3 (32bit/48khz) > SDcard > PC >
Audacity (tracking, EQ, level adjustments) > FLAC (24bit/48khz) > EZ CD Audio Converter (tags) > FLAC (16bit/44khz)


Comments:
At 76, Patti Smith is still a force to be reckoned with. This was the sixth time I saw her in 2023 and each time it was a very different but always great experience. One was an experimental performance with the Soundwalk Collective, the second one an impromptu solo performance at a museum and another one an open air concert in summer. The concert at the Pierre Boulez Saal proved very different as well, because the venue is an intimate hall designed to host smaller orchestras.
As I booked my ticket, the positioning of the band in the room was supposed to be different than it turned out to be: Patti and her band were supposed to be located in the middle of the room, surrounded by the audience. In the end they were positioned at one end of the hall, facing the audience. So everyone in the audience had a good view, but I ended up a the other end of the room, furthest away as possible from Patti and the band. And although the room is quite small, the result was that the recording picked up a lot of reverberation. All in all, I'd still give it an A-/B+.
Patti's performance that night wasn't without flaws either, but she made up for all of them with her charming personality. She wasn't sure about when to start singing at the start of "Boy Cried Wolf" for example and had a major coughing fit before "After The Gold Rush", causing her voice to break away several times during the song. Afterwards, she exchanged the vocally demanding "Pissing In A River" (written on the setlist) for "Grateful". Luckily, her voice had made a full return by then.
Despite the few hiccups, this was an excellent performance by Patti and her band. And it's all the more exciting when you think that at age 76 she is still able to perform to such a high standard!

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