the high priestess of the citadel: PATTI SMITH LIVE IN SPANDAU ‘In my way of thinking, anything is possible. Life is at the bottom of things and belief at the top, while the creative impulse, dwelling in the center, informs all.’ - Patti Smith, M-Train

By Cam Hassard Spandau, Berlin, Germany 15 August 2017

When HK and I moved to Berlin years back, we mirrored ourselves, In the fertile mid-point of the August lunar and solar eclipses, in part, on Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe in Just Kids. We neatly timed on the eve of what would have been Bukowski’s 97th weren’t living in New York City, and it sure wasn’t the 70s, but like birthday, HK and I caught a train not to rural southern Deutschland Patti and Robert, HK and I had plunged unexpectedly into each but to the heritage district of Altstadt Spandau on the western edge other’s lives, become partners on a common page, and were sud- of Berlin. Our destination: a 450-year-old Renaissance military cas- denly together in the void of an unknown, exciting new world. tle on a small island where the rivers Spree and Havel meet. There, With the shared belief that it was better to take the ‘skid in broad- a building, once a bastion of fortification, is now an arts hub where side in a cloud of smoke’ approach to life (to borrow from Hunter S. souls from across the world celebrate and connect. Bukowski and Thompson) than whatever the alternative was, we took life by the Andernach would have to wait; Patti Smith and band were coming horns in Berlin, chiselling away at our mutual creative endeavours to town. in a cosy 30 square metre apartment—not quite the confines of room 1017 at the Chelsea Hotel, but in our own way, close enough. ‘As “People Have the Power” rings It was a harsh first winter in Berlin. When times were dark, healing light was always found in Patti’s words and thoughts. When one out through the yard, I search of us was down, clouded by Berlin’s unyielding bleakness or our around the sea of faces. Strange crit- own reticence about what we were doing there, the other would stay strong to hold the ship of artistic dreams afloat, as Patti and ters, the bunch of us. Some wrin- Robert did. Where our ship was heading, neither of us knew, but it kled, some hairy, some shorter than felt exciting, it felt right, as it still does, no matter if our destination remains just as unknown. Whose is known, after all? tall, all strong in our own way.’

I was contemplating a scene in Just Kids the other week—Patti --- visiting Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, bowing her head as an irate French woman berated the desecrated state of Jim Morrison’s It’s a Tuesday evening and the air in Kreuzberg is sticky, the win- grave: ‘Why do you not honor your poets?’ ter a distant spectre. We stride a few blocks from our apartment through the grit of Kottbusser Tor and board a bright yellow U-Bahn Patti, of course, went on to spend her life doing exactly that, hon- from the iron overground. It would have been a neat prelude, but ouring through her work contemporaries like Hendrix, Morrison, we’ve no time to visit the Pasternak cafe, Patti Smith’s favourite Joplin, Jones, as well as revered predecessors Sylvia Plath, Rim- local haunt, evoked so warmly in her recent memoir M-Train. Eat- baud, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Osamu Dazai, Bowles, and Genet. ing her signature dish, the “Happy Tsar”—black sturgeon caviar Later, there was Mapplethorpe and Burroughs, and more recently, served with coffee and a shot of vodka—which she invariably did Sam Shepard. All these and more were souls who altered the land- beneath the cafe’s portrait of Mikhail Bulgakov, remains on the top scape for the better, the ‘strongest of the strange’ to quote Charles of my list of Berlin things to do. As evening scenes flicker past the Bukowski, ragers in the darkness, the naked hearts amongst us, the train window, I recall how a copy of Bulgakov’s The Master and mad ones, slave to bearing their deepest for the alchemy of creative Margarita appeared at my studio bookshelf earlier in the day, and liberation. how it huddled magnetically to Rimbaud’s Illuminations, a portent to Smith’s arrival. We must honour our poets. These words in my mind remind me once more of Bukowski, an early though fleeting influence on my Altstadt Spandau: how had we taken so long to acquaint ourselves own writing. Hadn’t he grown up in Germany? He had, in Ander- with the old Prussian stronghold? The medieval village feel is still nach, the ancient village in the Rhineland-Palatinate, a meandering intact. Locals from another era sip crisp half litres down the biergar- seven-hour train voyage away from Berlin. Envisioning a pilgrim- ten tables of the cobbled malls. Hidden lanes narrow into hushed age to Bukowski’s stately white altbaus in Andernach, plans shifted plazas, and under an awning of trees, we sit by the Nikolaikirche to as my mind retreated from the dead to the living. drink beer and coffee, as the leaves dapple the waning sun.

photograph by - 26 - - 27 - honor kennedy THE HIGH PRIESTESS OF THE CITADEL patti smith live in spandau

‘The Godmother of Punk ... a force for incredible good in a photograph by maddening world. Her decree, in the end, is simple enough. honor kennedy Live. Create. Make art. Make love. Harness your power and feel your (fucking) freedom.’

A mass of slow-to-move bodies mills out the front of Spandau Cit- adel. It’s an imposing red-brick fortress, and I imagine the knights of Brandenburg holding gaze as they used to from the jutted tower lookout. We negotiate the moat as minions, before spilling out onto the Old Barracks yard. It’s a festive vibe inside. Convivial mädchen serve free Jägers at the entry, decimating my bid for a booze-free month. The leberkleister warms our bellies and thrusts the mood skyward. We are here, and the pilgrimage is real.

As silver-haired guitarist Lenny Kaye warms up the crowd with his old 45s, we claim our turf by stage right; Wreckless Eric’s “Whole Wide World” tolls jangly love vibes through the Citadel yard.

Sky still bright after eight, there is a hush on stage. The band emerges, Patti last, a mane of iron-coloured locks in a black pant- suit. The sight of her alone sends ripples of exaltation through the adoring thousands. Her aura is strong; it’s a religious experience. The band opens with “Wing”, sombre and Americana-tinged, Patti’s Second Stop is Jupiter” sees the band lift off to eternity. Patti’s son, honeyed drawl satiating our longings. A sultry “Dancing Barefoot” Jackson, trades heartland-drenched lead on top of Kaye’s scratchy follows, segueing into a requisite “Happy Birthday”, in honour of power riffs, while bassist Tony Shanahan’s angelic backing vocals Wim Wenders (whose birthday was in fact the day before). soar.

A lone bird scores the sky above as the band kick into “Ghost With the Old Barracks now bathing in ethereal strobe, Patti honours Dance”, an homage to the Hopi Indian belief in dance as a way of her pal Sam Shepard with a stirring “Beyond the Southern Cross”. recalling the dead, particularly in times of strife. ‘And we are,’ as She reminds us all that we are alive: ‘Feel your fucking freedom … Patti reminds us—through faulty leadership, climate change, and and cross over!’ We soak the words up in a loving trance, liberated. a world that feels like it’s spinning off its axis—‘in a time of strife.’ Here in the fortress, we feel only refuge. When Shanahan’s ivories kick in with “Because the Night”, Pat- ti’s charisma takes wing. The Springsteen co-written chorus soars Cue a run of hits from across the decades: an improvised “My across greater Spandau. It’s backed by a rousing “Gloria”, addition- Blakean Year” that recounts a Berlin night-walk with two youths al proof that Horses—now well over 40 years old—is as pure as the who lead her home; “Mothers of the Disappeared”, a U2 cover day it was unleashed. Horses might have been written with death that recalls Patti’s visit to Bertolt Brecht’s grave, as described in in mind, but it’s as much a testament to the persevering strength of M-Train—‘Mother Courage and her children, my mother and her rock and the word to soothe and transform. son. They are all stories now.’ As “People Have the Power” rings out through the yard, I search As the evening sky shifts to match the colour of Smith’s hair, our around the sea of faces. Strange critters, the bunch of us. Some heroine swaggers, spits like a punk, and decrees with open palms. wrinkled, some hairy, some shorter than tall, all strong in our own Fusing Tarkovsky’s butterfly with the cosmic reach of Sun Ra, “The way. Bukowski’s grizzled drawl enters my headspace again. We are our own paintings, our own books, our own music, our own work.

‘We will not behave,’ is Patti’s final decree, suit jacket and vest laid to waste. ‘The people rule. The people rule!’

A calmness lingers in me after the show. Reconnection to the grid. The Godmother of Punk, the High Priestess of the Citadel, so posi- tive and lovingly powerful, a force for incredible good in a madden- ing world. Her decree, in the end, is simple enough.

Live. Create. Make art. Make love. Harness your power and feel your (fucking) freedom.

And, for the love of Goddess, dance on, and dance long, to your own song. fin.

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