Patti's Surrealistic Summer of love show at the Fillmore

[L French <lrfrench>]

Last night at The Fillmore, I looked out and it was so great. There were people Id been seeing since the mid-seventies out there. There were all different kinds of peopleold hippies, people in wheelchairs, vets, young kids, activistsand as I looked out it was so great to see such a cross section of people. It was a typical San Francisco night, which is how I like to work. I like to improvise, I like to talk with the people and I like the audience to participate in how the night is going. Im totally ready to do a classic rock and roll show, but I like the electrified town hall meeting approach.  
   
          Patti Smith 
   
   
   
   
  Talk about your classic rock and roll show! Pattis turned her single night at The Fillmore into the most technically perfect concert Ive ever seen her do, although that doesnt mean it was by any means her best concert shes given in San Francisco. In fact, the whole opening section of the show had me a rather alarmed, since Pattis opening choice of songs during her extended 140-minute show seemed to be mostly slower pieces. However, midway through the show, whatever initial misgivings I had where laid to rest when Patti turned the mic over to Lenny, whose rendition of Pushing Too Hard launched the second half of the show into the stratosphere, where it remained for the rest of the night. Patti followed it with her own Summer song, but not about love, but those vicious Cannibals, and then proceeded to tell about her previous strange night in San Francisco, which included watching several X-files shows on TV in her hotel room in JapanTown. Her Hotel, Patti noted was
 by a (Aint It Strange) coincidence dedicated 40 years ago, during the summer of love. 
   
  So when Patti finally used her remote to switch off the third X-file show she was about to watch on TV, she rested her weary head on her surrealistic pillow, and began to dream about her mother, Beverly, and hallucinated about seeing an Easter basket on the steps of an immense Stone Pagoda in Japan Towns Peace plaza (across the street from her hotel and the Fillmore), which like Pattis hotel, was erected in 1967, during the summer of love 
   
  But, why should there be an Easter basket here in July? thought Patti. Someone from the audience yelled out, Its August  Oh, right, said Patti. But in Pattis dreaming, seeing an Easter basket with a white rabbit, she awakened to the cry, Hey, Im in San Francisco, so everything must be okay  
   
  Of course, this long introduction, which Im paraphrasing, led into Pattis stunning rendition of White Rabbit which was probably given its best visual interpretation on the tour so far by the lighting technicians at The Fillmore, who re-created the psychedelic effects of all those magic mushrooms Alice Liddell took to Feed Her Head.  As Patti noted the next night in Santa Cruz, it was as if there were purplish-blue haze, that seemed to emanate from the anchovies on the Pizza she had ingested...  
   
   
   

       
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