{"id":2149,"date":"2017-01-01T19:08:17","date_gmt":"2017-01-02T00:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/?p=2149"},"modified":"2017-01-01T22:38:44","modified_gmt":"2017-01-02T03:38:44","slug":"patti-smiths-new-years-eve-vow-we-must-not-behave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2017\/01\/patti-smiths-new-years-eve-vow-we-must-not-behave.html","title":{"rendered":"Patti Smith’s New Year’s Eve vow: “We must not behave!”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Patti Smith, Dec 31 2016, Park West Chicago. Photo by Lauren Deutsch.<\/p><\/div>\n

Ushering in 2017 with Patti Smith and band at Chicago’s Park West New Year’s Eve was inspiriting for us\u00c2\u00a0of a certain age and artsy disposition.<\/p>\n

Grey-haired but loose and limber — funny, fierce, profane and poetically incantatory — Smith celebrated her 70th birthday in the city of her origin\u00c2\u00a0as if for all boomers and our progeny. At the Riviera Theatre on Dec. 30 she performed\u00c2\u00a0the whole of Horses, <\/em><\/a>her winning 1975 debut album; on the\u00c2\u00a031st, backed by her four-man Nuggets, she offered a mixed bag including Debbie Reynold’s plaintive “Tammy,” the Doobie Brothers’ “Jesus Is Just Alright,” a Prince cover, vague comments that become stories that turned images into phrases conjuring her anthems “Gloria,” “Because the Night” and “People Have\u00c2\u00a0the Power,” \u00c2\u00a0and for a finale\u00c2\u00a0the Who’s “My Generation” — as a call to arms in the form of\u00c2\u00a0active humanitarianism united in\u00c2\u00a0cultural bohemianism, a commitment to folk-rock-soul-art-literary-punk fun.<\/p>\n

“2017 is the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love!” Smith exhorted\u00c2\u00a0the full house\u00c2\u00a0of hipsters — perhaps a third\u00c2\u00a0the 900 standing for three hours in a mosh pit, though most looked\u00c2\u00a0as well-aged as Smith and her longtime guitarman, Lenny Kaye. “Our generation had ideals! We were going to change the world with music, love, sex, drugs, understanding! This was our weapon — ” she hoisted a Fender — “and now we’ve got to be strong! We’ve got a voice! We’ve got to teach the young, they’re the future!” She waved\u00c2\u00a0at her daughter playing keyboards, and hugged a Japanese guitarist who’d come from Tokyo to sit in. “We must\u00c2\u00a0not behave!”<\/em><\/p>\n

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Patti Smith and her Nuggets at Park West, Chicago 12\/21\/17. Photo by Lauren Deutsch.<\/p><\/div>\n

Extraordinarily for a New Year’s Eve party, in the middle of a\u00c2\u00a0show which had the immediacy of something thrown together with and for friends, Smith broke into talking about people\u00c2\u00a0less fortunate that those of us who’d gathered at some cost just for a good time. It was as if she made it easier to enjoy by acknowledged how fucked up things are, on so many levels.<\/p>\n

She complained of not understanding why people who need blankets can’t be given them, people who need food or water aren’t provided for of course,<\/em> and segued into her sympathies\u00c2\u00a0for Syrian refugees and others displaced by war.<\/p>\n

This came off not as\u00c2\u00a0a\u00c2\u00a0self-righteous didactic political statement but straightforward\u00c2\u00a0personal expression and the crowd responded with a long\u00c2\u00a0moment of quiet solemnity. Which Smith broke by mentioning