This morning Peter Jest of Alternative Concert Group announced that Patti Smith will bring her band to Milwaukee for an 8 p.m. show on Thursday, March 9 at the Milwaukee Theatre, 500 W. Kilbourn Ave.
Smith, who will perform her 1975 debut, "Horses," in its entirety, returns to town for the first time since 1979, when she played at the Milwaukee Auditorium, the former incarnation of the Milwaukee Theatre.
Tickets for the show range from $55 to $95 and are available at the Milwaukee Theatre box office or by call (800) 745-3000 beginning at 10 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 9.
With the show, Jest – who owns and operates Shank Hall on the lower East Side and also books gigs in other venues around the state – has completed a pretty amazing trifecta of gigs in recent years at the Milwaukee Theatre.
Jest booked Leonard Cohen, who died in 2016, into the big room in early 2013 and then provided Nick Cave his first headlining appearance in Milwaukee a year later.
Die-hard Smith fans will rejoice at the poet/rocker’s show because her band includes stalwarts Lenny Kaye on guitar and drummer Jay Dee Daugherty.
The gig will be Smith’s fourth in Milwaukee, acording to Jest. Her first two appearances were at the Oriental Theatre – March 6, 1976 and May 2, 1978 – and her third concert was at the Auditorium on June 2, 1979.
In addition to the eight tracks from 1975’s "Horses," Smith will also play a range of material from across her decades-long career.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
