Patti Smith, the poet laureate of punk rock, never has been one to hold her tongue.
"I haven't seen so many people without a mask since the Republican convention," Smith said early Saturday night at the Surly Brewing Festival Field in Minneapolis, shortly after she took off her own face mask.
Smith urged pandemic public safety. And, as always, she urged people to dream, vote, strike, love, create and "use your voice." The Rock Hall of Famer and award-winning memoirist mixed politics with poetry and rhythmic rock 'n' roll in a sometimes emotional, sometimes artful, occasionally ragged and ultimately winning 100-minute outdoor performance.
In her first Twin Cities appearance in four years, Smith gave shout-outs to recently departed Minnesota musician friends Grant Hart and Tony Glover as well as Grateful Dead leader Jerry Garcia, whom she said was born on Aug. 1 and died on Aug. 9 so she was still celebrating the nine-day Jerry Week.
Smith saluted Bob Dylan, though she didn't acknowledge that she was in his home state or that she had a role in accepting his Nobel Prize for literature (she sang his "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" at the ceremony he didn't attend in Stockholm but she flubbed the lyrics).
She did deliver "A Hard Rain" on Saturday, with eyeglasses and a hand-held lyric sheet. As the wordy broadside carried on and on, her urgency increased. "Where black is the color," she shouted with piercing vitriol, "where none is the number." Her clenching of her fists, her imploring "c'mon" to the crowd to sing the chorus and her shouting the coda "Bob Dylan, long may he prevail" all spoke to the potency and intensity of this reading.
During the rest of the set, Smith seemed to be at her most potent when revisiting material from early in her career. She opened with "Redondo Beach," the hip-swaying reggae groover from her magnificent 1975 debut album "Horses." Does any rocker — let alone one who is 74 years old — dance with more interpretive grace and soulfulness to their own music?
Her intoxicating mashup of "Land" and "Gloria," also from "Horses," was the unquestionable highlight, complete with an ad-libbed poetic rant about COVID-19. Two other oldies, "Pissing in the River" and "Dancing Barefoot," also invigorated the crowd of 3,500.
