Patti Smith

Asbury Park boardwalk. August 5, 1978. A damp afternoon was turning to evening. Inside a candy store, a few young people shadowed a woman wearing a brown jacket, hat and boots. The woman was Patti Smith, in town for a concert just a few doors away.

"Wow, I can tell I'm back in Jersey," Patti said to the fans around her, almost giggling. "The salt water taffy gives me pimples."

A few hours later, wearing the same brown jacket, hat and boots, Patti strolled on to the Asbury Park Convention Hall stage to the applause of a crowd already ignited by a stirring opening set by The Ramones. And, she squirted lighter fluid on them, figuratively, with a set that included "Because the Night," co-written by Bruce Springsteen and heard on many radio stations that year.

Less than a year later, shortly after the release of her fourth album, Wave, Patti Smith ended the first of her two sets at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic by saying, "I'm going backstage, eating a roast beef sandwich, and I'll be back."

She returned for her second set and, after a few minutes, told the crowd, "Oh, sh*t, I forgot my roast beef sandwich!" At the end of the concert, she waved goodbye. It proved to be a long goodbye -- she waited nine years before releasing her next album and some more before touring again.

Fast forward to December 15, 1995. Opening for Bob Dylan at The Electric Factory in Philadelphia, Patti Smith walked on stage as her band began to play and started singing and dancing barefoot. The crowd applauded her set, and cheered when she came back later in the evening to join Dylan on a duet of "Dark Eyes," which she ended by planting a kiss on her hero's cheek.

Patti Smith returned to concert touring this year, scheduling dozens of dates in the U.S. and Europe, where the popularity of this New Jersey-born Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee seems highest these days. On Friday night, she came back to her home state for a performance at the State Theatre in New Brunswick. Anyone who thought being 65 years old and on stage with her daughter would mellow the godmother of punk were proved wrong. Patti is still "outside of society...where I want to be," per the lyrics of one of her most popular and controversial songs.

She was in fine voice, despite her claim that the humidity was having an adverse effect on her singing. She danced on stage and even ventured into the crowd a couple times to dance with her fans. She spat out lyrics -- literally, at times -- with the same passion she showed at shows 30-40 years ago, and pleaded with fans to "Vote! Vote! Vote!" at the conclusion of "People Have the Power."

At one point during the New Brunswick concert, the predominantly 50+ crowd got particularly boisterous, yelling at Patti and at each other. She paused to listen, and asked, "Is there something controversial going on?" After the cacophony died down for a moment, she looked up at a heckler and yelled, "If you got a problem, come on down so I can give you a hundred dollars to get the f*ck out of here!"

She played some guitar, and ended the show by purposely breaking strings in a way that would've impressed Pete Townsend. She talked about the effect the pending arrival of Sandy was having on her body, and told stories about attending a scary movie in a New Jersey theater, hanging outside CBGB in New York, and a concert at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall that she'll always remember for many wrong reasons.

"This has been some night," Patti said before walking off the State Theatre stage at the end of her two-hour set on Friday night. "I'll never forget this show."

Nor will I and many others.

Bob Dylan, again

Last Sunday night at Monmouth University’s MAC center, I enjoyed seeing Bob Dylan in concert with my wife Noreen, sons Steven and Kevin, and friend Dave. It was the 15th time since 1975 I attended a Dylan concert – each of them in a different venue. If you’ve seen Dylan or any other performer 15 times, I’d like to hear about it, particularly if the shows were spread over many venues across a long period of time.

You never forget your first time, and for me it was on November 24, 1975, at the Hartford Coliseum. I drove three college classmates a few hours in a 1970 Thunderbird with worn tires to see Dylan perform with the Rolling Thunder Revue. My friend Patrice and I co-wrote an article about the evening that was published in the local Bloomfield, NJ weekly newspaper.

Three years later - three years before we were married - I drove with Noreen to Nassau Coliseum to see Dylan. From good seats on the side of the stage, she was quite taken by how he rocked. She earned a badge of honor 17 years later, though, when she stood on the hard floor of The Electric Factory for hours with me to see Dylan. I’ll never forget when Patti Smith, the opening act, joined Dylan on stage for a song and punctuated the performance with a kiss on his cheek.

I’ll also never forget the concert in Camden’s E-Center on July 28, 2000, the first time my two sons joined my wife and me at a Dylan show. My mind still retains the image of how excited my 9-year-old son Kevin was to see Dylan perform “Like a Rolling Stone.”

Five years later, I stood on a baseball outfield at Yogi Berra Stadium in Montclair, NJ through a couple of opening acts with my oldest son Steven, who just finished his freshman year at college, and Dave and his daughter just to be a few feet from where Dylan stood on the stage.

Following is my full setlist of Dylan concerts:
1975: Hartford Coliseum
1978: Nassau Coliseum
1981: Meadowlands Arena
1986: Madison Square Garden
1989: Waterloo Village
1995: The Electric Factory
1997: Garden State Arts Center
2000: E-Center
2003: Hilton Casino
2004: Tower Theater
2005: Beacon Theater
2005: Yogi Berra Stadium
2006: The Spectrum
2009: Blue Claws Stadium
2010: Monmouth University

You can never be too sure what you’ll see at a Dylan concert even though set lists are promptly posted on bobdylan.com, but fans attending the shows at New York City’s Terminal 5 next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and the Borgata Hotel Casino in Atlantic City next Friday can expect to see the 69-year-old Dylan play guitar and harmonica more than he has in many years. Uncharacteristically, he may stand in the front of the stage holding a microphone and croon through a few songs. The songs from the past 15 years will sound fine, and 1960s classics like “Ballad of a Thin Man” will pack as much punch as ever. Oh, and Bob probably won’t take off his hat during the show, no matter how loud the applause.