Patti Smith Returns to Pohoda After Eighteen Years, with Her Quartet and Songs That Changed Rock History
One of the most remarkable figures in world music, poet, writer and punk pioneer Patti Smith is returning to Pohoda after eighteen years. At the festival's 31st edition, taking place on 8–10 July 2027, she'll perform with the Patti Smith Quartet. Even after more than half a century on stage, her concerts remain an intense meeting of rock energy, poetry, personal stories and civic engagement.
05. November 2026
Patti Smith is one of the artists who fundamentally shaped modern music. When she released her debut album Horses in 1975, she fused raw rock'n'roll with poetry, improvisation and the energy of New York's underground scene. The record became one of the cornerstones of punk and is still considered one of the most influential albums in music history. But Smith has never been just a punk icon. Her work brings together rock, folk, blues, experimental music and literature, and her concerts have kept their spontaneity, urgency and powerful emotional charge.
She's returning to Pohoda for the first time since 2009. Back then, she played the main stage on Friday at sunset, performing key songs including Dancing Barefoot, Because the Night and People Have the Power. The concert was one of the highlights of the festival's 13th edition. In the second half, Smith called on the audience to recognise their own power, not to let themselves be controlled by governments or corporations, and to care for the environment. Her final message was simple: "Be free."
In 2027, Patti Smith will perform with the Patti Smith Quartet. She'll be joined on stage by her son, guitarist Jackson Smith; her long-time collaborator Tony Shanahan on bass and keyboards; and drummer Seb Rochford, known from Sons of Kemet and his work with David Byrne. Shanahan has played with Smith for more than two decades, and Jackson has been part of her live band for years. Rochford brings a distinctive rhythmic signature and experience from jazz and experimental music. Together, they give the classic songs new space and a new shape, one that highlights the power of the lyrics, the guitars and Smith's unmistakable voice.
Patti Smith was born in Chicago in 1946 and grew up in New Jersey. She moved to New York in 1967, where she gradually became part of the city's artistic life. She first made her name as a poet and performer, appearing with guitarist Lenny Kaye and looking for ways to combine spoken word with music. This collaboration grew into the Patti Smith Group and the album Horses. It was followed by Radio Ethiopia, Easter and Wave. Easter also features her biggest commercial hit, Because the Night, which she co-wrote with Bruce Springsteen. In 1979, she withdrew from public life, moved to Detroit, married musician Fred "Sonic" Smith and devoted herself to her family. After her husband's death in 1994, she gradually returned to music with the 1996 album Gone Again.
Her story is inseparable from two legendary New York places. In the 1970s, the CBGB club on the Bowery in the East Village was one of the most important hubs of emerging punk and new wave. This was where the scene took shape that gave rise to the Ramones, Television, Blondie, Talking Heads and the Patti Smith Group. Founded by Hilly Kristal in 1973, the club gradually became a home for musicians who were rewriting the rules of rock outside the major labels and big concert halls. When CBGB closed in 2006, the very last concert there was played by Patti Smith.
Another key place in her New York story was the Chelsea Hotel. In the 1970s, she lived there with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, with whom she shared an intense personal and artistic bond. She later described their early years, friendship and artistic search in her acclaimed book Just Kids. At the time, the Chelsea Hotel was a refuge and meeting place for artists, musicians and writers. Leonard Cohen, Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Arthur C. Clarke, Allen Ginsberg and members of Andy Warhol's circle all lived or worked there. In one interview, Smith compared life at the hotel to a university: a single place full of people she could learn poetry, art and a way of life from.
Patti Smith has received many major awards. In 2007, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 2010 she won the National Book Award for Just Kids, her memoir of her early years in New York and her relationship with Mapplethorpe. That same year, ASCAP gave her its Founders Award for lifetime contribution to music, and in 2011 she received the prestigious Swedish Polar Music Prize. She is also a Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres in France and a recipient of the PEN/Audible Literary Service Award. Her work goes far beyond music: she's a photographer, visual artist, poet and prose writer, and has long been committed to human rights and environmental causes.
Patti Smith remains an artist who doesn't just look back. In November 2025, she published the memoir Bread of Angels, in which she returns to her family history, childhood, work and personal losses. In interviews around its release, she spoke about the responsibility she feels when writing about the people in her life, and about the need to stay curious and open to the world. Her current concerts also show that, for her, music, poetry and civic engagement are still one and the same.
At Pohoda 2027, the Patti Smith Quartet will bring not only songs that helped shape the history of rock, but also a vivid, timely performance by an artist whose voice still has plenty to say today.
Photographer of the cover photo: Steven Sebring
Eighteen years ago, at a press conference before her Pohoda show, Patti Smith played Grateful for the journalists. Backstage, she also met Slovak music legend Richard Müller, who asked her to sign his guitar.