Half a Century of “Horses”: Patti Smith at Orpheum Theatre

Design by Kristen Lee

By Heather Thorn

Boston’s Orpheum Theatre filled with electric energy at Patti Smith’s concert on Monday, November 24. Anticipation buzzed in the crowd as everyone grew antsy in their seats, restless with expectation to witness Horses, Patti Smith’s iconic album released on November 10, 1975. 

The lights dimmed and onstage walked original members Lenny Kaye (guitar) and Jay Dee Daugherty (drums) along with Tony Shanahan (bass and keyboards) and Smith’s son, Jackson Smith (guitar). Kaye and Dougherty played on the original recording of Horses; Shanahan has been with the band for almost 30 years; Jackson Smith has been playing with them for more than 10. Patti Smith’s daughter Jesse Paris Smith joined on keys for the encore. 

And on strutted Patti Smith, 79, her swagger effortless as she instantly commanded the stage. Her band leaped right into “Gloria: In Excelsis Duo,” every person in the crowd holding their breath for the famous opening lines, “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine.” 

At the first note of “Gloria,” her voice cracked and she made the band start the song over. What makes Smith such an alluring artist is her humanness, and she used the false start to crack the ice by laughing at herself before proceeding to take us away with her magnetizing stage presence. 

50 years after the release of Horses, Smith proved its power isn’t going anywhere. When she announced the tour earlier this year, the last thing I expected was to end up with a ticket to see her. Thanks to divine intervention, I scored a ticket along with my friend (thank you, Christian!) and wound up only three rows away from Smith on a Monday night in Boston. 

She was a stick of dynamite on stage, her grey hair loose in braids as she demanded every single person’s careful attention, her band swirling sonics behind her storytelling. Smith’s wordsmithery and Kaye’s warps of guitar made the concert an out-of-body experience and for most of it I had goosebumps. 

Smith catapulted the reggae rhythm of “Redondo Beach” into new realms with her swinging, crooning voice, and “Free Money” was a burst of energy, an anthem that immediately raised everyone from their seats. “Birdland” ended the first set with Smith’s stretching of language beyond the page and even beyond the planes of music: during the nine-minute song, she moved her arms and used different parts of her body to accentuate the speaking part. Her hands pointed upward to symbolize the song’s lyricism and she knocked on her chest as she spoke. directions of the song’s  to gesture directions Towards the end, her band’s instruments died to a drum heartbeat as she sang the lines, “Take me up, I’m going up, I’ll go up there / Go up go up go up go up up up up up up up / Up, up to the belly of a ship.” Smith’s mouth pressed close to the microphone; I heard the sound of her lips meeting at the P of every subdued “Up.”

Smith teased the next song. “This is the part,” she said, when we “take the record and turn it over” to the B side of Horses: “Kimberly,” a song about Smith’s youngest sibling. The lyrics, “I feel like just some misplaced Joan of Arc,” resonated with me into the next song. Smith’s lyricism is the cutting kind with lines neatly bowed waiting to unravel you. Smith then introduced “Break It Up” by talking about her dream of Jim Morrison as a marble statue—the inspiration behind the song. 

Following was “Elegie,” a Jimi Hendrix tribute recorded at Electric Lady Studios. It tilted into the sprawling territory of “Land” consisting of “Land: Horses” and “Land of a Thousand Dances.” Smith doubled her energy as she roared about the world’s destruction. “What are you doing? Where’s the love?” she yelled before the song’s protagonist softened. “We have one life to live.”

The band’s first set finished full circle with a reprise of “Gloria,” the gift that kept on giving before Patti Smith went backstage for a break. Kaye, Shanahan, Daugherty, and Jackson Smith played Television songs “See No Evil,” “Friction,” and “Marquee Moon.” The Patti Smith Group goes way back with Television. In March 1975, both bands performed a two-month residency at CBGB playing weekend sets. 

It was a delight to hear “Marquee Moon” live; Jackson Smith hooked me with his weaning guitar riffs, and Kaye provided incredible vocals (and I’m not just saying that because I earned his smile by fist-pumping at him).  

Returning on stage, Patti Smith radiated love for Boston. “Forget all the gourmet stuff,” she said. “Get me a cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.” She admitted she loved their donuts, too, but has cut them out of her diet. 

The set began with “Dancing Barefoot,” a fan-favorite and for good reason, before “Ain’t It Strange” (a Jimmy Cliff tribute), “Pissing In a River” and “Peaceable Kingdom,” which bled into “People Have the Power.” Throughout the night, Smith wielded her powers to bring attention to the environmental and political states of the world. She said every word with a tongue of fire, desperate to cement the message as the instruments carried her home. But with the ultimately uplifting “People Have the Power,” she raised everyone’s spirits as the audience reclaimed control in uncertain times. 

“Because The Night” seamlessly continued the evening’s momentum, rolling into a precious love song for Patti Smith’s late husband Fred “Sonic” Smith. Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith co-wrote the song, the chorus first written by Springsteen before Patti Smith finished it. “I’m a good verse maker,” Patti Smith said on stage. Off of her 1978 album Horses, “Because the Night” is her most popular song and was written in their first days of courting when she knew Fred was the one. They were married for 14 years until his death on November 4, 1994. 

This date also marks Patti Smith’s memoir Bread of Angels, released on November 4, 2025. Bread of Angels is Smith’s most intimate memoir yet, a deep dive into her growing pains of childhood, unstoppable imagination, and introduction to the art worlds of poetry, lyrics, and rock and roll through Arthur Rimbaud and Bob Dylan’s work. Smith invites the reader into her life after music, too: her marriage to her one true love Fred, children, and following years of writer’s block in which she lost her words in a time of grief.

“We are on this chessboard Earth,” she writes on page 256, “we attempt to make our moves, but at times it seems as if the great hand of a disinterested giant haphazardly sends us on a trajectory of stumbling. What do we do? We step back and seek within ourselves what is needed to be done and serve the best we can. I want to write something redemptive.”

At the concert, the audience cheered with returning anticipation, desperate for an encore. And what’s a show without an encore? Not a Patti Smith concert. She returned onstage with Kaye, Shanahan, Smith, and Daugherty—along with Jesse Paris Smith on keys. Both the band and the crowd rejoiced for two more songs: “Ghost Dance” and a reprise of “People Have the Power.” “Ghost Dance” serves as an appreciation for Indigenous people’s appreciation for sacred ground and chants, “We shall live again.” 

“People Have the Power” was a wonderful last song, an opportunity I took to soak in as much of Patti Smith and her band while I still could. Orpheum Theatre’s spirit flamed and I found myself smiling ear to ear just looking at the musicians on stage, grateful they’re still performing 50 years later and with the same bolts of lightning. Horses (50th Anniversary) released on October 10, 2025 and features alternative takes, early demos, songs that subsequently appeared in her releases following Horses, and the previously unreleased “Snowball.” Smith’s career continues to astound audience members and listeners from home alike—a testament to her legacy that will reign for another 50 years.