Patti Smith to headline one-day festival in London

It’s been announced that Patti Smith will headline a new one-day festival in London.

Higher Ground Festival will take place on the slopes of Alexandra Palace on July 24. It will be headlined by Smith, with Nadine Shah, Connie Constance, Spelling, Nabihah Iqbal and Joviale also confirmed to be performing.

Higher Ground Festival will also host DJ sets, workshops, talks and readings. Tickets start at £40 and are available here.

Late last year, Smith was awarded the keys to her adopted city, New York.

“Some have called Patti Smith the godmother of punk,” Mayor Bill De Blasio said in a speech. “I think it’s a fair phrase because she inspired so many people, helped shape a whole artistic movement, and in many ways a political movement as well.”

“I wish I could give New York City the key to me,” Smith joked while accepting the honour, “because that’s how I feel about our city. With all its challenges and difficulties, it remains – and I’m quite a traveler – the most diverse city, to me, in the world.”

Last August, Smith released an EP of live recordings minted at New York’s iconic Electric Lady studio. It marked her first release since 2012’s ‘Banga’.

In addition to five of her own tracks, the ‘Live At Electric Lady’ record features covers of tracks by Bob Dylan (‘One Too Many Mornings’) and Stevie Wonder (‘Blame It On The Sun’).

Reviewing one of Smith’s recent shows in London, NME’s Leonie Cooper wrote: “It’s midway through ‘Land: Horses/Land of A Thousand Dances’ that it becomes crystal clear: Patti Smith is the world’s greatest living rock star.

“Furiously flailing across the Royal Albert Hall’s storied stage in her trademark monochrome Ann Demeulemeester outfit and imploring us to do the watusi, her mighty howl fills the room; hard and heroic, tough and tender and impossible not to be moved by, physically as well as emotionally.”