It wasn’t perfect. The very first word out of her mouth — “Jesus” — got swallowed up by a frog in her throat. She laughed, backed away from the microphone, and began again.
That line — “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine,” from her liberal adaptation of the garage rock standard “Gloria” — was quite an opening salvo. For half a century, the quintessential punk poet has mingled her own brand of magpie religion with the church of rock ’n’ roll. She’s a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and a National Book Award winner (for 2010’s “Just Kids”). In the lobby, there was a table overloaded with copies of her new memoir, “Bread of Angels.”
Get Starting Point
Her band, led by her longtime confidant Lenny Kaye on guitar, included two more close collaborators — Tony Shanahan on keyboards and bass, and Jay Dee Daugherty on drums. The stage looked like black and white photography: black clothes, white hair. Smith’s son, Jackson, rounded out the lineup on bass and guitar.
Patti Smith and keyboard player Tony Shanahan in concert at the Orpheum.JOSH REYNOLDS FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE
The first hour featured a straight reading of the entire “Horses” tracklist. “His father died and left him a little farm in New England,” began the lengthy spoken recital of “Birdland,” written about a boy’s dream about immortality.
Immortality is a subject that has sustained Smith her whole career. On Monday, she described how she and her onetime lover, Tom Verlaine, wrote “Break It Up” for Jim Morrison, and recorded the album at Electric Lady Studios, built by Jimi Hendrix.
On the epic “Land,” which blends Smith’s reveries with more classic rock nuggets, she whipped the band into action, twirling her wrist like she was throwing a lasso. “Do you know how to pony?” she snarled. “Like Bony Moronie?”
With the “Horses” tribute completed, the set stretched on for more than another hour. The second half began with Kaye and Shanahan leading the group on three cuts from “Marquee Moon,” the essential debut album of Verlaine’s band, Television.
By the time Smith returned to sing “Dancing Barefoot,” she was clearly caught up in the energy in the old auditorium. “Oh, God, I fell for you,” she chanted, extending her arms to the balcony.
She dedicated “Ain’t It Strange,” from her second album, “Radio Ethiopia,” to the memory of Jimmy Cliff, the reggae superstar who just died. The wistful “Peaceable Kingdom” was written with Shanahan in 2003 for the Palestinian people, she explained.
That song ended with a few spoken lyrics from “People Have the Power,” the unabashed anthem she wrote with her husband, Fred “Sonic” Smith,” in 1988. Smith, who died in 1994, would have been thrilled to know that their song has been adopted as they’d hoped, she said, to accompany “righteous causes all over the world.”
Patti Smith in concert at the Orpheum.JOSH REYNOLDS FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE
With the couple’s daughter, Jesse, joining the band on keyboard, they closed with “Ghost Dance,” a tribute to Native American spirituality, and a full reprise of “People Have the Power”: “It’s decreed — the people rule!”
“Make. It. So!” Smith implored as the crowd carried the chorus for her.
When the show ended, she and her band lingered onstage, beaming and joking in each other’s ears. Their train ride back to New York City would undoubtedly be a better trip.
PATTI SMITH
At the Orpheum Theatre, Monday
Here’s the setlist from Monday, according to setlist.fm. Keep checking back as the list continues to update.
