15 April 2023 (gig)
17 April 2023
Patti Smith’s last live Berlin performance was a summertime romp through her back catalogue in the courtyard of Spandau’s Zitadelle.
Tonight is an aeon away from that balmy evening, as the fog hangs over rainy Berlin for this more unsettling and thought-provoking performance at the city’s iconic Volksbühne.
No stranger to experimentation, the 76-year-old appears as part of Correspondences by Stephan Crasneanscki and Simone Merli’s Soundwalk Collective.
Against a backdrop of projected imagery by Pedro Maia, the Soundwalk Collective and Smith combine to evoke our planet and the environment, including damage to marine life and humanity. They begin with a stirring piece featuring Crasneanscki’s field recordings from Chornobyl’s radioactive Red Forest and a striking film by Roman Klymchuk. “Not a living thing but the buzzing of flies,” reads Smith hauntingly under a single spotlight.
Later, clips from 20th century filmmaker Pier Paulo Pasolini’s 1964 film The Gospel according to St. Matthew play out from upstage, as Smith, through her words and delivery, drives the entire collective, which has in the past worked with Philip Glass, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Nan Goldin.
Russian 15th century painter Andrei Rublev, canonised by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1988, provides the inspiration for a long chanted piece. It’s Smith at her trance-like best, repeating the line: “You’ll cast bells, I’ll paint icons”. The singer songwriter’s poetic contribution to this collective cannot be understated. The tempo picks up, evoking the energy of the Beat poets, and there are accepting jolts and shuffles in the auditorium’s plush red seats as the bpm rise.
Smith then allows her own songwriting into the fold, closing the performance with the delicate Wing, from 1996’s Gone Again. With its references to rain and the ocean, it’s a natural fit, given the evening’s environmental tone.
After taking a bow, Smith leaves nothing behind but a scattering of torn white scriptsheets across the stage floor.
The next day, she’s across town at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie, reading and singing more familiar songs to a crowd of modern art lovers, with Monica Bonvicini’s works providing the backdrop. And, yes, it’s still raining.
Picture credit: @chris.everything.now
