It's a be-saved or be-damned baptism by total immersion, a sermon of cryptic profundities and sagacious incantations. You’d be forgiven for thinking that I'm describing some apocalyptic exorcism. In a way it is.

One part rock 'n' roll concert, one part history seminar and two parts shamanic experience, Patti Smith Quartet - her son Jackson Smith on guitar, Tony Shanahan on guitar and keys and drummer Seb Rochford - are back in Dublin for a two-night run at Vicar St, kicking things off with a freight train of a performance.

The one-time high priestess of punk rock has lost none of her power. Long grey hair falling around her head, Patti Smith is dressed in her usual androgynous black jacket, white t-shirt and jeans. She has always cut a staggering figure, and in her seventies – tonight in her “dancing Keds” - she still moves lithely and sings with a lung capacity that lends something chasmic and maybe even carnivorous to her extraordinary keening vocals.

Patti Smith at Vicar Street, Dublin 27.6.2024 Copyright Colm Kelly

The quartet kicks off with the rousing ‘Summer Cannibals', an alt-rock suite of three simple chords rotated and inverted. As far as the underlying musical structure is concerned, that’s basically it. But Smith’s vocal intensity grows as the song progresses, and her guttural gnawing howl of “Eat! Eat!” as well as her firestorm delivery of “descending into hell” brought me into a state of unbridled joy. For a presence and voice as eclectic and moonstruck – if that is the right term! – as Patti Smith, perhaps a straightforward melodic structure is needed to ground the performance.

With her hands held out, her voice switching from swan-diving melodrama to a growl and the tumble of beat poetry pouring out with its emotive soul power, Patti Smith is in total control.

Patti Smith at Vicar Street, Dublin 27.6.2024 Copyright Colm Kelly

Her artistry continues to both surprise, and strike awe in, the onlookers and listeners. If her references are ancient, it doesn’t matter. With a performance such as this, the electricity and energy is timeless. Honest, raw emotion boasts its own set of rules.

If another fabled artist were to cover Lana Del Rey’s ‘Summertime Sadness’ it might seem like an attempt to show the young crowd that you can flow with the current trends. But when Patti introduces the song as a poignant tribute to her late husband Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith  of MC5 and the salad days of their romance – the line “kiss me hard before you go” hitting like a steak knife to the heart – you let her cook.

Patti Smith at Vicar Street, Dublin 27.6.2024 Copyright Colm Kelly

The Patti Smith-Bruce Springsteen co-write ‘Because the Night’ is dynamite, the crowd lapping up every iconic measure and verse before she ends the song.

A brief intermission - in truth, Patti needed a “bathroom break” - sees the band burst into a fervid rendition of The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s 1967 classic, ‘Fire'. Tony Shanahan's guitar chops are well worth bowing towards, his fingers blurring across the fretboard like Roadrunner’s legs vamoosing from Wile E. Coyote. Smith saunters back on stage during an extended intro to the effortlessly cool ‘Dancing Barefoot', perfectly timing her slow-burn walk to the microphone before the first verse.

Tony Shanahan at Vicar Street, Dublin 27.6.2024 Copyright Colm Kelly

Elsewhere, an ecstatic ‘About a Boy', written by Patti and Fred 'Sonic' Smith for Kurt Cobain while grieving his death, swells with elegiac abstractions on the afterlife. The gut-punch of an outro draws sniffles and muted weeping from the audience, a moment to reflect on those who’ve left the earthly realm. The snuffles soon turn into whiffs, catching the scent of those first iconic notes of a Nirvana all-timer. What’s that smell? It’s ‘Teen Spirit.’ In salute to the grunge rock icon, just about everyone joins in, belting the lyrics out like there's no tomorrow.

Patti Smith at Vicar Street, Dublin 27.6.2024 Copyright Colm Kelly

With a career of devoted activism and protest under her belt, the topic of Palestine is on everyone’s minds, including Smith’s, the cheers peppered with “Free Palestine” and “Saoirse Don Phalaistin,” to which the singer raises her glass in salute. The affirmations of “We shall be free” of ‘Ghost Dance’ are met with raucous applause.

‘Peaceable Kingdom’ soon follows, a heartrending track that addresses the memory of Rachel Corrie, a young activist who was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer in the Gaza Strip while Corrie was trying to prevent the demolition of Palestinian property. “I’m a mother, she was only 23,” Smith says with a quivering voice before dedicating the song to Corrie’s parents and the people of Palestine.

Patti Smith at Vicar Street, Dublin 27.6.2024 Copyright Colm Kelly

For the encore, the Patti Smith Quartet return to the stage for a pummelling, fever-pitch performance of her protest classic, ‘People Have the Power', also in tribute to the Palestinian people. Smith implores the room to hold their hands in the air for her call to arms, railing against government, apartheid, genocide and corporate evil. In these unifying moments, she casts a spell as spiritualistic echoes, and chaotic guitar reverb, clash in the background.

Patti Smith at Vicar Street, Dublin 27.6.2024 Copyright Colm Kelly

As the bandmates walk off the stage, Smith stays on for some final sage advice: “Make sure you drink plenty of water when you get home.”

Any closing remarks, Patti?

"We are fucking free"! 

Patti Smith at Vicar Street, Dublin 27.6.2024 Copyright Colm Kelly

• Check out the full gallery from the concert here. Photography by Colm Kelly.