Live in the METAstadt

Patti Smith: The punk icon returns to Vienna

The "Godmother Of Punk" is coming to Vienna live (possibly for the last time).

(Bild: Barracuda Music)

Patti Smith is one of the greatest living legends of the popular music and general culture scene. Together with her band and with Heather Nova and Ina Regen as supporting acts, she is coming to the METAstadt open-air venue in Vienna these days. A special, and perhaps final, pleasure.

Since the late 90s, Patti Smith's appearances in Austria have become so regular that it's almost tempting to try and channel the great joy of seeing her again into normal channels. She particularly enjoys performing in the venerable walls of Vienna's Burgtheater or at her personal favorite venue, the Vienna Arena. But the magnificent concert hall also welcomed the American punk icon with great pleasure - performances in the federal states from the Graz Kasematten to Burg Clam and Salzburg's Domplatz complete the live series of the now 77-year-old thoroughbred artist, who - like good wine - matures gracefully with age and allows her live concerts to grow into even greater events.

Rebel and art mother
The last rendezvous dates back to the summer of 2022, when she reinforced the rustic charm of the arena twice and sang and spoke her way through a colorful oeuvre of her unique career. Now she's coming to the "big version" of the arena, Vienna's METAstadt. Perhaps for the last time, biology is merciless after all. Experiencing Patti Smith is a natural phenomenon every time. She is not only a musician on stage, but also a lyricist, photographer, painter and muse. Throughout her life and career, she has been a unique mixture of society-denying rebel and loving, caring art mother. The "Godmother Of Punk" has left her mark not only on New York, but also on Paris with her postmodern understanding of art.

She revolutionized the cultural world to its very foundations with her life partner Robert Mapplethorpe, and the importance of her person is in no way inferior to that of Bob Dylan. Dylan came full circle in 2016 when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and chose not to be present in Sweden in person, preferring instead to send Smith forward as a singing ambassador. She sang "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall", had a slight lyric hiccup and played over this unexpected faux pas with charmingly disarming authenticity. Over the years, Patti Smith has meandered between fragile poetry and dissonant electric guitar. Between innovation and emancipation. A heroine across all boundaries, who always did the right thing without an agenda, which is not synonymous with the simple and logical.

Live in Vienna's METAstadt
Now the Patti Smith Quartet is coming to us in the flesh once again on July 25 - in Vienna's METAstadt. She has American Heather Nova and local figurehead Ina Regen with her. And, of course, the Decoration of Honor of the Republic of Austria for Science and Art, which she was presented with at a ceremony in Vienna at the end of October 2019. Tickets for the summer open-air highlight are still available at www.oeticket.com.