Fifty years after the release of Horses, Patti Smith celebrates the enduring power and influence of the songs from her iconic debut with a series of special concerts around the world. The Horses 50th Anniversary Tour also stopped in Italy for one exclusive date on October 10, 2025, at Bergamo’s ChorusLife Arena.
A unique concert in which the album is performed in its entirety, featuring Lenny Kaye and Jay Dee Daugherty, two original band members, alongside longtime collaborator Tony Shanahan (keyboards and bass) and guitarist Jackson Smith, Patti’s son.
The event concerts span eight European cities (Dublin, Madrid, Bergamo, London, Brussels, Oslo, and Paris) and nine cities across the United States (Seattle, Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Boston, Washington D.C., and Philadelphia).

THE STORY OF HORSES
In the fall of 1975, Patti Smith gathered her band at Electric Lady Studios in New York to record her debut album, Horses. Released on November 10 by Arista Records, it quickly became a seminal work and an essential cultural landmark — one that remains profoundly relevant to generations of musicians and artists.
The sonic manifesto of Horses was clear: “three-chord rock merged with the power of the word.” A poet and visual artist, Patti had begun two years earlier to improvise her unmistakable blend of songs and visionary imagery in cabarets and small clubs, accompanied by guitarist Lenny Kaye and pianist Richard Sohl.
Her live performances allowed her to refine the material while building a growing underground following in Manhattan. By the winter of 1975, during a seven-week residency at the then little-known CBGB club on the Bowery, the band had expanded to include guitarist Ivan Kral and drummer Jay Dee Daugherty. During this time, Patti signed with Clive Davis, president of Arista Records. John Cale was chosen to produce the album, which was released on November 10 — a symbolic date marking the anniversary of the death of one of Patti’s greatest artistic inspirations, poet Arthur Rimbaud.
The album opens with the electrifying declaration: “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine,”
woven into a reinterpretation of Van Morrison’s Gloria. Horses represented a return to rock’s primal instincts, aiming to awaken its spirit at a moment when that vitality seemed at risk of fading. The album’s artistic soul also emerged in compositions where free-jazz textures fused with propulsive rhythms and incantatory lyrics, as heard in Birdland and Land. Meanwhile, songs such as Redondo Beach, Free Money, Kimberly, and Break It Up offered — and continue to offer fifty years later — an idealistic and romantic vision of the world. With the closing track, Elegie, rock’s past and future intertwined in what felt like a “sea of possibilities” becoming the present.
Steeped in poetry, Horses was an uncompromising exploration that helped lay the foundation for the punk movement, even though Patti and her band consistently resisted labels. As she wrote in the album’s liner notes:
“Beyond race gender baptism mathematics politricks,”
adding, “…as for me I am truly totally ready to go.”
The now-iconic photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe on the album cover — Patti standing with her jacket slung over her shoulder — perfectly captured that moment of transformation.
Horses marked the beginning of a long musical journey that continues to resonate with even greater intensity today. Over the years, the album has received numerous honors, including the Charles Cros Award, and has been inducted into the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress.