Patti Smith and New Model Army

What else is there that’s left to say about Patti Smith? There’s no question that she’s a bona fide punk icon, having been one of the towering creative forces of the New York movement of the seventies. She’s been inducted - quite rightly - into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, won the National Book Award for her gorgeously poignant memoir Just Kids, and has influenced everybody from Morrissey and Jonny Marr to Courtney Love, and Michael Stipe to Madonna. It probably says a lot about the society that we live in that you never seem to hear the term ‘renaissance woman’ thrown around, but I can’t think of anybody it applies more readily to than Smith. Two years ago, she toured the UK for the first time in more than five years; the sheer variety present in the twenty-song sets that she typically played said everything you needed to know about what a career she’s had. She lent heavily on Banga, her most recent record, and played a handful of tracks from her classic Easter; thereafter, she plucked just one song each from a slew of her best-known albums, including Horses and Radio Ethiopia. A clutch of covers, too, proved that she’s not immune to taking cues from elsewhere herself, but honestly, you have to imagine she could have read the phone book onstage and had the audience enraptured; they turned up to see an artistic legend, and that’s precisely what they got.

I don’t think there is anything I can say that will do New Model Army the kind justice they deserve but here goes. The post-punk/alternative band formed way back in 1980 by Justin Sullivan the singer and composer as well as bassist Stuart Morrow and drummer Phil Tompkins. Interestingly New Model Army derive their name from Oliver Cromwell’s English Revolutionary Army.

The wonderful charisma of Justin on stage and the warm and comforting northern accent he uses, he seems to build a rapport and a trust with the audience immediately, like we’re all in on something big, like on the verge of revolution. And his lyrics and views are as socially conscious as any, the band was refused entry in to the U.S. for apparently having no artistic merit, however their anti-U.S. imperialist views might have had something to do with it. But they sure stand up for what they believe, and songs like 51st State, which had everyone singing at the top of their lungs around has given the band a kind of cult status.

I could not wait to hear the song Vagabonds, yes it’s their most well known and arguably most popular but there’s a reason for that, it’s because its so unbelievably amazing, the violin makes me tingle every time in places I didn't know existed. I’d have loved to see them in their heyday but seeing them recently was still a awfully good decision.