She seems like a priestess, holder of the flame of wisdom of the tribe, the one who transmits knowledge, experiences, the spirit of the arcana. She has an almost venerable air, the one of those people who do not need to move much to tell everything through the gestures of hands that seem to push the words, the senses, the emotions and the memories, that past that she will transmit as long as she lives. And the public experiences her like that, with a reverential air, with the respect of someone who has changed the impetus for the calm wisdom that flows in her songs. She met again with Barcelona, dark jacket, casual pants, gray hair cascading, transmitting affability and even understanding in the face of the mistakes that we as humanity make. It was Patti Smith, the sibyl that came from the times of rock.
And like a serene divinity, the pause was the rudder throughout the night. Patti Smith, a sparse trio group, with the figurehead on the guitar of her son Jackson Smith, undisguised pride of her mother, maintains a slow pace in her songs, as if the words that are said calmly weighed more, as if the rhythms that do not let themselves be run over by speed were deeper, penetrating more. Even the most lively and dynamic songs, the one that opened the concert, Summer Cannibals or the one that closed it, Glorythey had more substance due to the intention that Patti put into them than to the very edge of the songs, which were sharp by right. Or maybe the mere fact that they were sung by her already imposes another dimension, more emotional character, more of a feeling of having a piece of history in front of you explained with songs that are ancient wisdom. The kind that is told by the oldest women in the place, preserving it.
That combination of time, wisdom, memories and claims enveloped the night in Pedralbes. With her slow speech, Patti remembered her friend and historic promoter Gay Mercader, to whom she dedicated Nineclaimed the suffering of those who have to leave their land in Ghost Danceregretted the situation of the Palestinians, to whom he dedicated Dancing Barefoota song that sounds serious in itself and the memory of her late husband, the musician Fred Sonic Smith, hovered over the stage both in words and through the presence of their son on lead guitar, the protagonist of several solos with a deep rock lineage. Life seen from a watchtower that is already 77 years old. Every day is a great day, every day there are fewer and in each one the joy of existence is celebrated.
Did not sound People Have The Powerbut if Smell Like Teen Spirit as I remember Cobain. Dylan passed through the scene, Man In The Long Black Coatalso Lana del Rey, well covered by Summertime Sadnessin Because The Night The audience sang to themselves and to the memories that this composition evokes, because concerts like this are also a song to their own memory, a kind of celebration strung together with rock beads. There are fewer and fewer artists who can thus star in the present, the grandson of those youthful days of fury. The river no longer runs wild, but the calm plain of its delta occupies everything in a mouth whose memory will be eternal.
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