Patti Smith Marks 50 Years of Horses With Commanding New York Performances
Nearly five decades after the release of Horses, Patti Smith returned to New York last week with a pair of performances that underscored both the durability of her landmark debut and her continued presence as one of rock’s most compelling live performers. The shows at the Beacon Theatre formed part of her ongoing 50th anniversary tour for the album, which originally arrived in November 1975 and has since become a cornerstone of American punk.
At 79, Smith approached the material with a sense of purpose rather than nostalgia. She opened with “Gloria,” extending the song’s introduction, reshaping its pacing, and heightening the tension before the familiar refrain landed. Across both nights, the song appeared multiple times, each performance slightly different, highlighting how central it remains to Smith’s live identity and how freely she still interprets her earliest work.
The concerts emphasized the collaborative foundation of the Patti Smith Group. Longtime guitarist Lenny Kaye, who has performed with Smith since her earliest poetry readings, remained a stabilizing presence, anchoring the arrangements and guiding the pacing. Drummer Jay Dee Daugherty, who played on the original Horses sessions, continued to bring precision and restraint, while Tony Shanahan, a key member of Smith’s band since the 1990s, shifted between piano, bass, guitar, and backing vocals. Smith’s son, Jackson, handled guitar duties throughout the night, and her daughter, Jessie Paris Smith, joined on piano for the encore.
Smith used the stage to acknowledge her personal history as much as the album’s. She dedicated “Because the Night” to her late husband, MC5’s Fred “Sonic” Smith, briefly tracing the song’s origins and its emotional weight. Those reflections echoed the themes in her newly released book, Bread of Angels, which chronicles some of the most difficult periods of her life, including her years in Detroit and the loss of her husband in 1994. The performances carried that emotional background quietly but unmistakably.
Still, the concerts were not solemn commemorations. Smith kept the energy high, leaning into the rhythmic drive that has always shaped her work. “Kimberly,” written for her younger sister and set to a doo-wop-inflected groove, emerged as one of the evening’s highlights, a reminder of how deeply Horses drew from early rock and R&B, despite its reputation as a punk landmark. The crowd responded strongly, singing along to the song’s climactic lines and giving it the same intensity usually reserved for “Gloria.”
Midway through the show, Smith left the stage while the band performed a short medley of Television songs, a tribute both to the era that produced Horses and to the late Tom Verlaine. The gesture connected the concerts to the broader cultural moment from which Smith’s debut emerged, CBGB, downtown New York, and the cross-pollination among the musicians who defined that scene.
Smith also incorporated selections from across her catalog, including “Dancing Barefoot,” which she introduced with a brief anecdote about early label pushback to its lyrics. Her delivery balanced directness with clarity, reflecting her longstanding ability to move between spoken-word cadence and full-voice intensity.
Across the two Beacon Theatre shows, Horses proved as structurally sound and emotionally resonant as it did in 1975. Rather than treating the album as a museum piece, Smith approached it as a living document, one that continues to evolve as she does. The performances demonstrated why remain essential, not only for the historical impact but for the way they continue to connect with audiences across generations.
