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At one point during her 90-minute set at Pioneer Courthouse Square, Patti Smith wished aloud she could conjure up thunderstorms over downtown Portland. Not so much as a reprieve from the triple-digit temperatures we were all enduring that evening, but mainly to keep us humble. To remind us how fragile we are in the face of the primal forces of nature.
Truth be told, we were already thinking about the frailty of life as we stood at the feet of this venerable songwriter and poet. Smith’s face and gray hair and sometimes tentative movements were stark reminders of her age (76). And during her and her band’s cover of Television’s “Guiding Light,” a tribute to Tom Verlaine, one of her fellow New Yorkers who passed away earlier this year, she briefly forgot the words to the second verse. All reminders that she’s closer to the end of her days than the beginning.
That was reason enough to endure the heat and the occasional hyper-exuberant fan—to honor this force of nature in human form while she is still with us. And goodness knows, for much of the set of proto-punk classics and art-rock invocations, the years disappeared from Smith’s voice and body, leaving her looking and sounding ageless.
The overarching message, as spelled out in her stage banter, was one of immediate action. Smith urged us to help rebuild our city, to use our voice to fight back against the powers that be, to vote, and to protect our delicate planet. It was a point she drove home most acutely with her one-two punch of an encore: a gorgeous rendition of Neil Young’s “After the Gold Rush” and her own anthem “People Have the Power.” A week later and that moment has me still inspired to storm the halls of Congress with some metaphorical thunderstorms of my own.