Patti Smith Quartet

Patti Smith Quartet at The Atlantis is an unusually close-up way to hear one of rock's most singular voices. The September 1 show puts Smith in a small room with Tony Shanahan on bass, keyboards and backing vocals, guitarist Jackson Smith and drummer Sebastian Rochford, a lineup that gives her catalog plenty of room to breathe and stretch. The quartet's arrangements strip away some of the grandeur that can surround Smith's legacy, leaving the poetry, guitars and restless rhythms at the center. That matters in a room this size, where the quieter turns can register alongside the more forceful songs. The Atlantis is also a fitting setting for an artist whose early work helped define the collision of poetry, art and punk, even if the evening is less about recreating 1975 than showing what those songs sound like now.