PATTI SMITH Royal Albert Hall, London, October 5

AFTER so long away, this is a rock’n’roll night blazing with meaning, community, history and humour: a ritual of undiminished potency. Patti Smith, who walks with ghosts of poets, rockers and artists at her shoulder, revering as much as she’s revered, understands such values with every sinew. She knows the resonance of standing in Dylan’s Royal Albert Hall, in Blakean London; with Lenny Kaye and Jay Dee Daugherty by her side, her band also retains the majority of the makers of 1975’s Horses, most of which is played tonight.

The crowd, many– the literary Smith of her memoir has dominated. Reports from recent UK visits suggested a distracted, affable performer, gently reduced from the third-rail voltage with which she resisted the Iraq War in shamanic early 21st century shows, when she embodied all of rock’s most radical, reality-warping hopes. Like Dylan’s revelatory 2013 Albert Hall shows, Smith has come to raze such doubts tonight.