Patti Smith *** The Forum, London
Patti Smith endured one of the greatest insults of her 25-year career last weekend, when an observer at her Glastonbury show likened her to Alanis Morissette's mother. Yet there's something to it. Both singers are inclined to tell us more than we want to know, to go that little bit further to transmit the self-loathing at the core of their music. Smith is redeemed, though, by being completely uningratiating, seeming not to care whether anyone likes her. She laid on a veneer of charm at the Forum, but spent much of the time glaring at the crowd as if it had turned up uninvited to a band rehearsal.
Attitude is something Smith practically invented while helping found Manhattan's art-punk scene - and she still bristles with it. She may be 52 and look like the kind of old lady who lives with 20 cats, but she reads her epic poem, Piss Factory, with shining ferocity. High on what she calls "the power of the word", the rambling verses put her in a trance, which she breaks by spitting on the stage. Once a punk . . .
From there the show trundles along unevenly. Her band, staffed once more by original members Jay Dee Daugherty and a suspiciously youthful Lenny Kaye, never stray from three-chord 70s grunge, which, combined with her caterwauling, gets pretty wearing. Too many tunes, including a smattering from her next album, rely on Smith being Freaky Patti - trembling, tearing at her hair, abasing herself. She doesn't need to do this; we already know she's for real. Several times she asks us, "You all right there?" when the question is clearly directed at herself.
On the other hand, there's a ponderous integrity to Dancing Barefoot and Pissing in the River, which derive their impact from slow-building layers of guitar and Smith's relatively straight delivery. After the latter song she winsomely recalls the last time she tried to perform it in London, in 1976, when she "couldn't get the notes right." There were many people here who looked like they remember it from the first time round, and they're the ones who encourage her to get ever more overwrought as the set progresses. Really, though, simplicity should be Smith's credo. It's the simple numbers that shimmer with dignity and drag you in like a black hole.
