There are currently many concerts for the older pop generation, and their representatives are piling up. They also filled the Vienna Arena twice, where Patti Smith stirred with her anthems.
The song “Gloria”, which the now 76-year-old Van Morrison wrote when he was 18, is not named after the part of the Christian service: it is rather a rough song of desire, addressed to a girl by that name. On Tuesday in the St. Margarethen quarry, Morrison gave it the aura of a gospel. But as early as 1975, Patti Smith transformed it in a much more radical way: reinterpreted it as lesbian, but above all as an objection to a central Christian dogma, as a declaration of innocence: “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine.”
This epoch-making song, on which the pop generation between Woodstock and Punk practiced its glorious rebellion, was not missing from the Vienna Arena, which Patti Smith – also already 75 years old – filled twice this time, especially with representatives of this generation. He still has an effect, and he seems more religious than ever, as often inspired denial has a more religious effect than insipid piety. Although Patti Smith is also a big confessor, and a hymnist. So she read with great fervor Allen Ginsberg’s “Footnote to Howl,” that ecstatic celebration of the sanctity of life in which every human being is an angel.
“Life is the most beautiful and precious thing that we have”, with this confession she introduced the song “Beneath the Southern Cross”, which begins with the call “Oh to be – not anyone”. Some sang along, and many seemed to be in tune with this mantra: I’m here. Of course, the sentence “I’m still here” resonates more and more, giving a late concert by this singer, who has sung so many elegies, epitaphs and obituaries, additional emotion. So it may fit that the first song of the evening, the reggae “Redondo Beach”, ended with the word “Goodbye”. And what kind of life does the line “We shall live again” mean in the mantra-like “Ghost Dance” from their Easter album?
A song for Johnny Depp
Sure, Patti Smith has been experienced more intensely, the sweltering heat bothered her, as she also admitted. She still looked cool, especially at Bob Dylan’s enigmatic “Wicked Messenger” and the rather Dylanesque “Nine”, the Johnny Depp is dedicated. She dedicated “Pissing In A River”, which gives goosebumps at any temperature, to the Viennale director Hans Hurch, who died in 2017; “Because The Night”, this almost martial hymn to love, her husband Fred “Sonic” Smith (1948-1994), father also of their son Jackson Smith, who played guitar, often with a subtle groove. In contrast to the heartily direct style of Lenny Kaye, her companion from the start, who without her delivered a gruff combination of “I Wanna Be Your Dog” and “Walk On The Wild Side”. Long may he also walk on the wild side.