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# Patti Smith: St George’s Church, Kemptown: Review
- URL: https://www.scenemag.co.uk/patti-smith-st-georges-church-kemptown-review/
- Published: 2013-08-14T15:10:47.000Z
- Updated: 2013-11-09T18:29:59.000Z
- Description: The fact that Patti Smith omitted Gloria, with its opener “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine”, from her set-list at St George’s Church, Kemptown was inconsequential when compared with how deftly she interwove songs from her 39-year career with the wistful words of stories pulled from her c
- Author: Graham Robson
- Tags: Music, Reviews

![pattismith2](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/pattismith2.jpg)

The fact that **Patti Smith** omitted *Gloria*, with its opener *“Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine”*, from her set-list at St George’s Church, Kemptown was inconsequential when compared with how deftly she interwove songs from her 39-year career with the wistful words of stories pulled from her critically acclaimed novel, *Just Kids*.

The acoustic show, which was billed as featuring the Godmother of Punk herself and band member **Tony Shanahan**, also featured, cult-folk urchin **Patrick Wolf**, now raven haired, who dominated the violin and harp section, and drummer **Andy Newmark**. Whether or not Patti and Co really did find Patrick *“busking in Brighton”*, is open for debate.

Her classics found themselves reinvigorated lying alongside her captivating spoken word. Ode to womanhood *Dancing Barefoot* blistered under Patti’s more guttural delivery and ricocheted off the church walls, while *Redondo Beach* retained its calypso lilt in the all-acoustic setting.

Anecdotes were at once moving: the reading of an undelivered letter to the late Robert Mapplethorpe; nostalgic: John & Yoko’s ‘War Is Over (If You Want It)’ billboards beaming down upon her during a late-night walk through New York; and impassioned: her love of poet William Blake, which proceeded the country-tinged *My Blakean Year*.

While these moments were genuinely touching, the middle-part of the gig was marred by an uncharacteristic outpouring of mushy sentimentality, leaving us wondering whether this was indeed the real Patti Smith or an impostor in a bedraggled wig with a Royalist agenda.

A bumbling, fawning name-check of *“Little”* Prince George was met with a wall of uneasy silence, while Amy Winehouse was the subject of *This Is The Girl*, a stumbling piece of elevator music irreparably buckled by the ham-fisted lyric: *“This the blind that turned in wine/This is the wine of the house it is said”*.

Awkward repartee aside, the evening was redeemed by a pounding *Pissing In A River* and *Because The Night*, before Saint Patti implored us to embark on a trip down the aisle to the altar for a bop to the cathartic pop of *People Have The Power*.

Strange for a sinner, yet so thrilling!