Patti Smith and Bonnie Raitt show age is no barrier to rocking out with fiery gigs ahead of Bluesfest

THE Godmother Of Punk Patti Smith has delivered one of the gigs of a lifetime to open her final Australian tour.

Patti Smith says Australian fans have supported her from the beginning. Picture: Edward Mapplethorpe

DO not mess with Patti Smith.

The Godmother Of Punk celebrated the dancers who rushed the State Theatre stage at her opening Australian concert in Sydney on Sunday and banished someone with their phone stuck to their face to “go take a f***ing photo over there”.

“If someone wants that spot more than you, you don’t deserve it,” she said with a smile as the crowd overran the front rows, a situation typically frowned upon by the State Theatre ushers.

It is Smith’s final tour of Australia, with her doctor cautioning against long-haul air travel because of bronchial problems.

And she is performing her seminal debut record Horses in full plus the added goodness of songs including Dancing Barefoot, Because the Night and an incendiary My Generation in which she declared she wants to live “until I’m 110”.

Patti Smith was passionate and inspiring at her opening concert in Sydney on Sunday. Picture: Don Arnold

Her fiery passion was beautifully balanced by genuine affection for her audience — “I love you too” she replied more than once.

But what really stirred the goosebumps beyond hearing the power of her voice on Birdland or Gloria, undiminished by the decades and those dodgy lungs — was the reverence with which she delivers her songs and words.

Smith knows they already have deep meaning for her fans but she wants you to understand what they mean to her.

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She dedicated Elegie, the final track on Horses to “all those we love” and then namechecks several friends and musicians no longer with us including The Ramones, Amy Winehouse, Prince and her late husband, MC5’s Fred “Sonic” Smith.

There was something unforgettable and inspiring about this giant of a woman sharing the best of everything she has to offer with the Australian fans she acknowledged have supported her from the beginning.

“We never got a gold record before we got one in Australia,” she said during one of her regular chats or recitations.

Mavis Staples is at Bluesfest. Picture: Supplied.

Rickie Lee Jones is touring Australia. Picture Supplied.

The 70-year-old punk powerhouse isn’t the only queen of contemporary music visiting Australia to perform at Bluesfest over Easter.

While the level of female representation on festival bills has been in the spotlight for the past year, Bluesfest generally appears to punch above its weight not only on the basis of gender.

There are more than 40 women playing their event than your average music festival, including Rickie Lee Jones, Kasey Chambers, Joan Osbourne, Mary J Blige and the evergreen 77-year-old soul goddess Mavis Staples.

Blues guitar legend Bonnie Raitt opened her Bluesfest sideshows also at the State Theatre last Friday night and had many grown men professing their love for her all over social media during and after the gig.

More than 45 years after she began playing in New York clubs, the 67-year-old Raitt marvels that she has spent a lifetime “playing the music I love”.

When she opened for Mississippi Fred McDowell at the Gaslight Cafe in 1970, Raitt was still at college and trying to earn some money on the side from her distinctive vocals and instinctive guitar playing.

“My hobby was playing music. Fred told me I had done well and got a couple of other gigs under my belt,” she says.

“I don’t even know why some people make it and others don’t; I think I was given some great genetics, having parents who were so musical and made learning to play so natural.”

Bonnie Raitt has reinvented INXS’s Need You Tonight for her latest album. Picture: Supplied.

Raitt believes she “got a foot in the door” because of her unique “bottleneck” style of playing. And there weren’t many women playing like she which made her “unusual”.

“The appreciation for women instrumentalists and the opportunities for women to play in bands has grown. I think the days of someone saying you have to look a certain way or play a certain way to play in a band are over,” she said.

Raitt struggled in the early years of her career to cross over on to the pop charts and also wrestled with alcohol and substance abuse.

But after she cleaned up, her 10th record Nick Of Time, released in 1989 made her a star, winning three Grammys and landing on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of all time list. She also features on their rolls call of the greatest guitarists and singers in pop history.

Raitt applies her idiosyncratic playing and voice to the INXS hit Need You Tonight on her recent Dig In Deep album.

“From the very first time I heard that song, I knew I wanted to cover it,” she says.

“I knew I could slow it down a little bit, I love singing ‘Slide over here and give me a moment ... you are one of my kind’.

“Andrew Farriss has said he really likes our version, he’s a sweetheart and I’m thrilled they got it.”

Patti Smith performs again at the State Theatre on Monday, Bluesfest, Byron Bay on April 13-14 and Melbourne’s Hamer Hall on April 16-18 and Festival Hall on April 20.

Bonnie Raitt plays QPAC, Brisbane, April 12 and the Byron Bay Blues And Roots Festival from April 14.

Originally published as Patti Smith and Bonnie Raitt show age is no barrier to rocking out with fiery gigs ahead of Bluesfest