The quotable Patti Smith

She's been doing it for long enough that you never know, but Patti Smith is still a mesmerizing live performer. She had a magnetic quality about her Friday night at Toad's Place in New Haven, and it was hard not to watch her even when she wasn't in the spotlight (during a Lenny Kaye guitar solo, say, or when one of her bandmates took over on lead vocals).

She's funny, too, with a dry wit, and her stage banter was as much of a treat as the songs.

She talked some about the music: Smith wrote the lyrics to "Because the Night" (music by Bruce Springsteen) one night while waiting and waiting for her boyfriend to call her from Detroit. He was supposed to call at 8; the phone finally rang at 3:30 in the morning. "And I married him!" she crowed.

She confided that her mother was from Bridgeport, and had met her father at a church dance in New Haven in 1936. "And I'm glad they did," she said. Smith also offered funny asides, riffing on place names in New Jersey, calling Sen. Joseph Lieberman "the evil, puppet-faced guy" and proclaiming her love for the "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" cartoon show.

Perhaps the funniest moment, though, came toward the end of the show. A woman in the front had yelled out for "Gloria" after pretty much every song, and finally Smith betrayed wry exasperation. "Somebody shoot her," Smith said, then added, "But, ya know, with something harmless."

My review runs Sunday.