On July 24th, the third and final day of the WXPN All About The Music Festival, three generations of female musicians performed on the Camden Waterfront in New Jersey. I had long anticipated the day and it arrived in full summer splendor: sunny and beautiful.

It was late afternoon when Erin McKeown took the stage playing a pale green hollow-body electric guitar. The Delaware River and a bright blue sky created the perfect backdrop for songs from her new release We Will Become Like Birds. At the age of 27, it seems to me that Erin McKeown is an old soul. She sang lyrics in Latin: “Aspera! Per aspera! Per ardua! Ad astra!” which she translated as, “Thorns! Over thorns! Through this trouble, we are born!” McKeown spoke of how she wishes we could all get away from technology for awhile and be free from our cell phones and computers. “Maybe someday we can live on the moon, but because we can, doesn’t mean we have to, astronauts come, and rockets will go, nothing so precious as what we don’t know,” she sang.

When Indigo Girls, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, took the stage, they brought the audience along on a journey through their prolific career, playing songs from nearly every CD they’ve released since 1989. As they ended each song, they met our applause with their trademark southern “thanks y’all!” After more than 15 years on the road, the Indigo Girls have amassed a loyal following of fans and many were in the audience that day. During a few of their songs, Amy and Emily stopped singing mid-song and stepped away from their microphones. They smiled as they listened to the sea of fans’ voices singing every word.

The crowd went wild when Erin McKeown appeared back on stage to join Amy and Emily singing “Closer to Fine”. It’s an Indigo Girls tradition to invite the opening act on stage to join in singing their most famous song but since this was a festival, Erin was not technically “the opening act.” I think she took Amy and Emily by surprise when she appeared on stage. They thanked her for “sneaking up” to join them.

Just before sunset Michaela Majoun, a DJ from WXPN, took the stage to announce Patti Smith and her band. Majoun left the stage only to return seconds later saying, “Please welcome Columbia Records Artists Patti Smith Band!” Apparently this was important to the band, as they have previously been long time Arista Records Artists.

I had been waiting all day to see Patti Smith. I am too young to have experienced Smith on stage in her heyday, but I’ve listened to her music and have always been intrigued by her. Talented, gutsy and bold; she is a musician, a poet, a daughter, a wife and a mother who has always felt free to buck the idea of anything that is considered “lady-like.”

The set started with Smith singing “Dancing Barefoot”. After the song, she grabbed a bottle of water and knelt down on the edge of the stage. As she smiled and waved to the audience, I was surprised because she seemed so sweet and girly. After watching her perform a few more songs during which she spit on stage, the term “girly” wasn’t really coming to mind anymore.

The audience chanted along to the anthem “People Have the Power” and pumped our fists to “Free Money”. During “Rock N Roll Nigger”, Smith sang her part and then yelled, “Lenny!” Smith’s long-time friend and lead guitarist Lenny Kaye picked up the lyrics. Smith, who once fell from the stage and broke her neck, jammed on her guitar while spinning around and around as a veil of hair covered her face. The amazing part is that she is 59 years old!

Smith, who grew up in New Jersey, added some new lyrics to “My Blakean Year” from her 2004 release Trampin’. Singing about visiting Camden as a child in 1964, her lyrics spoke of eating cotton candy, drinking hot chocolate and shopping at the thrift stores. She laughed and told us: “I always had an expensive winter coat, compliments of the rich people across the river in Philadelphia!”

Performing her version of Van Morrison’s “Gloria,” Smith put a twist on the lyrics: “Look out the window, see a sweet young thing humpin’ on the parking meter, leanin’ on the parking meter and I say, “What’s your name?” She says, “Can you spell?” I say, “Yes, I went to school in New Jersey! G-l-o-r-i-a….Gloria…G-l-o-r-i-a…Gloria!”

At 8:55pm, Smith’s road manager whispered something in her ear and Smith told us that they only had five minutes left to play. Smith had a quick discussion with her road manager and the WXPN crew, then came back to the microphone to say, “OK, we have five more minutes to play and then we can leave and come back for an encore, so we won’t leave and come back, we’ll just keep playing.” Giggling, she said, “I’m sorry, I’m just so excited to be here! I love it here!” And there before me was that girly thing I had seen in her earlier in the show.

When the show was over, my friends and I sprinted towards the car. We tried our best to beat the rush out of Camden and back to our suburban New Jersey hometown. From what I can recall, it went well. I don’t remember any problems with traffic. All I remember is that beautiful day when three generations of female musicians entertained us under the blue New Jersey summer sky.

Patti Smith        Erin McKeown & the Indigo Girls (© 2005 Alex Lowy / Lowyphoto.com)