Carnegie Hall’s dressing rooms and backstage corridors teemed with rock royalty and Hollywood celebrities on Wednesday night. Everyone — from Bruce Springsteen to Kim Gordon to Sean Penn to Michael Stipe — was getting ready to take the stage for a tribute concert for Patti Smith that wove through the punk rock poet’s repertoire.
Karen O hung out in her dressing room as she got ready to sing “Gloria.” Scarlett Johansson paced up and down a hall as she prepared to read a letter Ms. Smith once wrote to Robert Mapplethorpe. Lounging backstage beside trays of tofu skewers and fingerling potatoes, Jim Jarmusch studied a poem by Ms. Smith he’d be reciting.
Flea, the bassist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, sat alone in a stairwell playing his trumpet as showtime neared. Dressed in a Dries Van Noten suit, he would anchor the house band alongside Charlie Sexton, Steve Jordan, Tony Shanahan and Benmont Tench.
“This is the first time I’ve been in a house band for something like this at Carnegie Hall, and the only person I think I’d do it for is Patti,” Flea said. “Patti is someone who chose poetry as her light. She never phones it in, she always brings the truth. Her life’s mission is to get down to the core of what’s happening. Everyone is bringing their A game to honor her for this thing tonight.”
Mr. Stipe, the frontman of R.E.M., mentally prepared in his dressing room.
“I’ve chosen a song I love, ‘My Blakean Year,’” he said. “It’s from one of her later albums, and I think it speaks to where lots people find themselves right now with the current administration.” He added, “To cover a song writer like Patti Smith, you can’t resort to mimicry, you have to make it your own on the stage.”
Alison Mosshart of the Kills, who would perform “Ask the Angels,” reflected on the 50th anniversary of “Horses,” Ms. Smith’s 1975 debut album, which featured prominently in the evening’s set list.
“We’re always drawn to the first records for a reason, because they’re seen as the most fearless or honest,” Ms. Mosshart said. “For me, that was the first album of hers I heard, and it got into my body.”
The night’s first performance came from Matt Berninger of the National. He performed “Piss Factory,” a jazzy spoken-word piece Ms. Smith wrote in the 1970s.
As he paced about the stage while Flea grooved out beside an amp, the crowd cheered as Mr. Berninger reached its climactic passage:
“I’m gonna be somebody, I’m getting gonna get on that train, go to New York City, I’m gonna be so big I’m gonna be a big star and I will never return,” he said. “Oh, watch me now.”
Watching from her balcony seat with a smile was Ms. Smith, 78. Her daughter, Jesse Paris Smith, sat beside her holding her hand.
Performers included Courtney Barnett, who played “Redondo Beach;” Angel Olsen, who sang “Easter;” and Glen Hansard, with a rendition of “Beneath the Southern Cross.” Other artists included Sharon Van Etten, Johnny Depp, Maggie Rogers and Jesse Malin. The concert was presented as part of the Music Of series, which was founded by the live-music impresario Michael Dorf. The series helps benefit nonprofits that specialize in music education.
In the backstage lounge, Ms. Johansson prepared for her performance.
“I’m reading a letter to Robert Mapplethorpe and also a poem that’s an ode to him,” she said. “One was written when he wasn’t well and dying. I’m going to have to try to get through it onstage without falling apart.”
As Ms. Johansson took the stage, a rock band composed of 7th and 8th graders stood nervously getting ready to take her place. They hailed from Lower Manhattan Community Middle School and they were performing in participation with Music Will, one of the nonprofits partly funded by the Music Of series. They would be performing “Paths That Cross,” a slow and poppy ballad from Ms. Smith’s 1988 album, “Dream of Life.”
One of their vocalists, Eliza Schwartz, represented yet another generation for whom Ms. Smith endures as punk rock’s premier poet. “Her lyricism is so beautiful to me,” she said. “I love how she tries to get so much emotion into her voice when she’s onstage, so that’s what I’m going to try to do, too.”
When Mr. Springsteen performed a thundering version of “Because the Night,” a song he wrote with Ms. Smith almost five decades ago, a sea of glowing cellphones materialized across the auditorium to chronicle the moment.
After Mr. Springsteen walked off, Ms. Smith greeted him with a hug, as she finally readied to take the stage herself. She’d sing “Peaceable Kingdom” and finish with an ensemble performance of “People Have the Power,” for which she invited every musician present to join her onstage.
But Ms. Smith opened with a poem without accompaniment from her band.
“Cry, humanity, your song is done,” she said. “Blessed are the beasts that serve everyone. Blessed is the night that bleeds into day. ”
The concert hall fell silent as everyone listened to each word she had to say.
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