Flesh And Bone After All: How Patti Smith Got Candid At Her Sydney Opera House Talk

After a final Australian tour that saw her play Bluesfest and a string of headline dates around the country, Patti Smith stopped by the Sydney Opera House for one final appearance. ‘In Her Own Words’ saw Smith talk, read and sing over one intimate hour, drawing on a body of work that spans poetry, visual arts, studio albums and memoirs. Patti superfan DAVID JAMES YOUNG was there and found that it’s impossible not to be moved by the Godmother of Punk.

Patti Smith is nervous.

It’s a sentence one doesn’t get to type very often — this is, after all, a woman that has fearlessly forged her own path through over 40 years in the game. A woman who has never compromised her image or her sound in order to gain accessibility or credibility. A woman who, for the last few weeks in Australia, has been routinely ending her shows by strapping on an electric guitar and promptly beating the shit out of it, breaking every single string in the process.

Still, in this moment – her final night in Sydney and, by extension, Australia – Patti Smith is nervous. She’s looking out upon a very full Joan Sutherland Theatre in the Sydney Opera House, where we have gathered to hear the woman of the hour reflect on her life through photos, songs and excerpts from her two books.

It affects the flow somewhat, as Smith goes on to lose her place and take in the slideshow projected behind her out of order. Still, it’s not something that makes one think less of Smith or detracts from the concept of the show.

“Iconic as she is, she’s also a human being”

If anything, it endears Smith to us. It humanises her. Iconic as she is, she’s also a human being. She visits Uluru with tour groups. She’s a mother, endlessly proud of what her children have achieved. She has loved and lost, and lived to tell the tale.

All of this is touched upon across the course of In Her Own Words, with Smith scoring both hearty laughs and genuine sighs at the more touching moments. We learn of her friendships, her marriage, her arrival in New York City and her time at the Chelsea Hotel – which, excuse the reference, she remembers well.

In fact, Smith’s music only plays a relatively minor role in the grand scheme of things. We’re treated to a beautiful a cappella ‘Wing’, as well as simple acoustic numbers like ‘My Blakean Year’ and ‘Beneath the Southern Cross’. Their inclusion, however, is to bookend stories or to lead into different tales rather than to take the central focus.

Through her own words, Smith steps out from the grand effigies that her audience has built for her to reveal flesh and bone – not to mention her heart, still full and still beating.

“Smith’s music only plays a relatively minor role in the grand scheme of things”

Smith – reluctant, embarrassed and yes, still nervous – asks for her audience’s assistance in closing the evening with an en-masse sing-along of her biggest hit, ‘Because the Night’.

Many have already had the pleasure of doing so at one of Smith’s many sold-out shows quite recently, her band relishing every last flourish and chord change. There’s something incredibly special – religious, even – about this rendition. With only our voices filling the theatre, Smith’s final moments on stage in Australia are ones that no-one in the room will soon forget. Her nerves, finally, are gone.

Truly, we don’t deserve Patti Smith. No-one does. But goddamn, are we going to miss her.

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