After 38 years, Patti Smith to return here
The godmother of punk rock Patti Smith last performed in Milwaukee on June 6, 1979, at the Milwaukee Auditorium.
Thirty-eight years later, she’s coming back.
Smith and Her Band will be at the Milwaukee Theatre, the site of the former auditorium, on March 9, as part of a four-day tour. She’ll be performing her first album “Horses” in its entirety, with two musicians from the recording — guitarist Lenny Kaye and drummer Jay Dee Daughtery — as well as bassist and keyboardist Tony Shanahan, a member of Her Band for more than 20 years.
Inducted into the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress in 2010, “Horses” — a radical fusion of punk and Smith’s beat-inspired lyrics — has influenced scores of artists, from the Smiths to Wisconsin’s own Garbage. As part of a deep-dive analysis of Smith’s catalog in 2014, Journal Sentinel features editor Jim Higgins called it “one of the great debut albums in rock history.”
After its release in 1975, another nine albums of original material followed, along with books of poetry, the memoirs “Just Kids” and last year’s “M Train,” and other works. Smith, who turned 70 Friday, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, and performed Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” at the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm last month. (Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, but not present to accept.)
The show is being presented by Peter Jest, owner of Alternative Concert Group and local venue Shank Hall. In 2014, Jest brought Leonard Cohen to the Milwaukee Theatre for his first concert in the city in 38 years. Following that show, Jest wanted to book another music legend’s long overdue return to Milwaukee, and has been pursuing a Smith date for nearly three years.
“I kept asking the booking agent, and over the last six months, got more persistent,” Jest said. “I’m 52, and a lot of people my age or younger have not seen her. She crosses so many musical boundaries, from obviously punk rock and the Springsteen crowd to Milwaukee radio, where in the ’70s people like Bob Reitman loved her and played her to death . ... It’s going to make a lot of people happy.”
Reserved seats for Smith’s 8 p.m. show are $55 to $95, available beginning at 10 a.m. Monday at the box office (500 W. Kilbourn Ave.), by calling (800) 745-3000, or visiting