PATTI SMITH : HOME FOR THE HOLIDAY - CHICAGO BROADCAST 1998

  1. Dead City
  2. Dancing Barefoot
  3. Redondo Beach
  4. Don't Say Nothing
  5. Gone Again
  6. Beneath The Southern Cross
  7. I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry
  8. Wing
  9. Summer Cannibals
  10. Free Money
  11. About A Boy
  12. Because The Night
  13. People Have The Power / Rockin' In The Free World
  14. Pissing in A River
  15. Declaration of Independence / Rock 'N' Roll Nigger / Gloria

Label : Leftfield Media

Venue : The Riviera Theatre, Chicago, Illinois, USA

Recording Date : November 22, 1998

Release Date : 2019

Length : 87:31

Quality : FM recording (A+)

Review : "Chicago! The city of my birth ... and rebirth!" The evening's event was the annual WXRT "Concert For The Kids", wherein audience members, in addition to paying a little extra for the ticket price (sometimes), were encouraged to make donations to this local charity, including bringing along toys for the upcoming Christmas holiday (hence the weeks-earlier usual concert date each year). About the performance of the headliners, I'll start with the band members (introduced by Patti late in the show). Patti Smith - vocals, guitar Lenny Kaye - guitar Jay Dee Daugherty - drums Tony Shanahan - bass Oliver Ray - guitar, squawks, feedback Personally, kinda-hero Lenny Kaye's presence on stage in Patti's band was key for me. Heck, whatta band in all, especially enlightening for my first time seeing Patti and the Group. I was seated at the front of the Riviera balcony, just off centre, and it was a great spot to view this scorching show. I'd go further than jojogunne's all-caps summary and say that by the end of the concert, you could feel your skin peeling off from the intensity, but that would be exaggerating. Instead, I'll just guarantee that you'll have white-knuckles, if only for that blistering eleven-plus minute final track (samples included). Two days earlier than this concert, I'd attended a personally-historic show at (the late) Double Door, but that's another story. However, it's relevant that Chicago already was in full-winter mode, with negative-Fahrenheit temperatures by the third week of November. The combination of the cold, my going in and outside frequently (I rode public transit to both concerts), and shredding my voice on that first concert night, left me in weak, hoarse shape on the 22nd, the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Rather than putting myself into the scrum for Patti's show as I'd done a few nights earlier, I was glad to relax and watch from up above the stage. Unfortunately, the band was on fire, and I had no voice to whisper, let alone shout, in approval. This performance demanded it, so those surrounding me merely witnessed mute attempts at screaming along. A fantastic evening which you'll discover if you haven't heard this previously. I seem to recall at the time that there might have been a live broadcast of the show, but of course I wasn't around to record it. As claimed in the DJ intro, this recording captured a debut broadcast early in 1999, rather than a rebroadcast. While the show was "voted #1 concert of 1998 by WXRT listeners", I can tell you that not all nominated or listed shows on those annual lists were broadcast by the station, but instead were typically pilfered mostly from station-sponsored local concerts and whatever popular-at-the-time artists for whom the listeners would want to vote. WXRT typically liked to edit down to an hour for their usual Sunday night performance series, so it's a treat to get a full 90 minutes. With an extra credit for one of the band members in the DJ outro for concert engineering, it's likely this was the first broadcast. Just glad to have it at all. With respect to the anecdote about the Allen Ginsberg poem "Spell", unfortunately I cannot confirm its recitation or not, as too much time had passed. But I'll say if there are any radio-unfriendly swears in the poem (as per frequent standard by Ginsberg), WXRT most certainly would have edited it out, perhaps explaining the quick "thank you" from Patti at the end of Redondo Beach, leading into her reading from a different "piece of paper" before the next song, Don't Say Nothing. Additional between-song bits of audience cheering also might have been clipped to fit into the 90-minute time slot, which also could explain any excision of the poem - I doubt any music is missing.

Note : This WXRT-FM broadcast recording was issued on vinyl and on CD as "Home For The Holiday" by Leftfield Media. The tracklist is not correct. "My Blakean Year" is actually "Beneath The Southern Cross" and "Pissing In A River" is missing on the artwork, although it was broadcasted.