Patti Smith herself gets into the spirit of musical improvisation as well here, dedicating "Seven Ways Of Going" to Ornette Coleman, before taking flight on the clarinet to scale her own heights of tonal bliss. On "25th Floor," she turns this same approach inside out, creating a frenzy of discordant noise worthy of Hendrix (though perhaps somewhat lacking his technique), on a beat-up old Fender Strat.
Although Patti Smith comes across more these days as an elder rock poet, it is fitting that for her long overdue first official live release she also acknowledges her past.
The "hits" are represented nicely here on letter-perfect versions of "Because The Night," "Free Money," and "Redondo Beach." Patti also re-embraces her original inner punk-rock revolutionary on a frenzied cover of "Not Fade Away," which segues nicely into the show-closing call to arms anthem "People Have The Power."
Coming more than 35 years after her landmark debut album Horses, Patti Smith's first official live document has been a long time coming. But the performance seen and heard on Live At Montreux 2005 proves more than worth the wait.
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