The great and legendary Patti Smith did a series of three shows at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium last week, culminating in a New Year's Eve show, and also including a show on her birthday, December 30th. Doing a trio of shows over these same three days of the year was something she began doing in the 1970s in New York and continued doing in the last decade at Bowery Ballroom, often featuring Michael Stipe with a birthday cake, and this year San Francisco got the honor.
On Wednesday, the 30th, in the middle of her set, she was joined on stage by Stipe as well as her daughter, Jessie Smith. The cake this year was in the shape of a peace symbol, and to all the people who have given Patti shit about wearing peace-symbol pins and calling it corny and hippie, she says, "There's nothing fucking corny about peace. Ask the refugees walking across hundreds of miles with their children if there's anything fucking corny about peace."
Tell em, Patti.