Just kids. We were just kids.

Those are the words I found refraining in my brain as my chiming iPhone awoke me New Year’s morning.

Only nine hours earlier – as roadies readied the Bowery Ballroom stage for her annual New Year’s Eve performance - I had pondered what Patti Smith and Her Band would spend 2011 promoting. Sounds cynical I know, especially for an artist as anti-commercial as Patti Smith, but concert performances these past two years have been often scheduled in conjunction with product. In 2009, it was Steven Sebring’s documentary Dream Of Life. In 2010, it was Smith’s National Book Award winning memoir Just Kids. I had been at the previous night’s show – the ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’ birthday bash – and having noticed the absence of any of the Twelve covers a thought popped in my brain: ‘In 2011 the product should be a new album.’

Apparently Patti Smith agrees because towards the end of the longest show I’ve seen her give in some time – as a ‘Land’/’Glora’ medley was drawing to a close – Patti announced that there would be a new album in 2011. Then urged on by guitarist Lenny Kaye and bassist Tony Shanahan, she was nudged into doing a new song for the new year. She admitted the idea of doing so made her nervous - especially after having played a really professional show – and apologized in advance saying she wasn’t sure if she’d remember the words. But after one aborted attempt, out came ‘Just Kids’, an instant classic. I don’t know if it’s three chords but it is merged with the word. No one knew the new song was a tie-in to her book about Robert Mapplethorpe and a lost New York City until the chorus kicked in but the crowd couldn’t help singing along the second time it heard it. ‘Just Kids’ – the song – had just given us a lot of hope for the coming year.

I love Patti Smith’s New Year Eve shows because they are almost always broadcast on Sirius-XM radio, which helps keeps her focused. The set included songs for friends past and present (a moving tribute to Robert Mapplethorpe via ‘Wild Leaves’ and a barbecuing of ‘Summer Cannibals’ because Michael Stipe was in the house); new covers (The Beatles’ ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ (to recognize a Lennonian anniversary one wishes we didn’t have to acknowledge) and The Monkees’ ‘Daydream Believer (because as we learned the previous night, Patti shares the same birthday as two Monkees); a new Nugget for Lenny Kaye to showcase (The Blue Magoos’ You Ain’t Got Nothing Yet’) in memory of a guitarist he had played in The Zoo with (and whom had died Christmas Eve).

But when it was all over and I walked back through the slush to my Tribeca hotel, the highlight of the night for me – other than a new song I already loved – was hearing a song of Patti’s I must’ve heard live for at least two dozen times: ‘Dancing Barefoot’. It reminded me why I fly up to my dirty old home town every December to see Patti Smith and Her Band.

I don’t know if he’s officially a member, but the second guitarist in Patti’s band the last few times I’ve seen her has been Jack Petruzzelli, who is a member of The Fab Faux and has also backed up Joan Osbourne and Ian Hunter. He has an understated style with leads rooted in chords and over the course of the past year he has perfected a solo for ‘Dancing Barefoot’ that really moves it far away from the Wave arrangement. And as Patti waded into the spoken word section following his lead, the band ebbed in such a manner that I found myself looking for the boy that was going to be looking at Johnny. It didn’t happen, but the fact that could have gave the song so much possibility that I felt as if I was hearing it for the first time. The way Patti still seizes the possibilities of live performances after almost 40 years never ceases to amaze and why I implore you to pick up a ticket if Patti Smith and Her Band come to your town this year to promote their new product: their new album. I hope she calls it Just Kids too because her concerts make you feel like one.

Being back on Sirius Radio after a one-year hiatus and still smartin’ from a poor - but even-handed - New York Times review of a show two nights earlier, Patti Smith and Her Band bid bye bye to the decade with a bang.

Patti’s opening poem December honored the blue moon that nobody could see – it was a rainy New Year’s Eve night – but otherwise the poetry readings and excerpts from her soon-to-be-published memoir (Just Kids) were kept to a minimum. This was one of those shows where Patti strutted her transcendent professionalism. Without any guest appearances, Patti let her band do the talking. ‘Ask The Angels’ soared and the show didn’t land until over two hours later with the band thrashing out ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Nigger’ and Patti dramatically busting each guitar string – one by one – of her black and white Fender Duo-Sonic.

The first third of the set featured material from her enormously brief period with The Patti Smith Group in the 1970s.Then, beginning with George Harrison’s ‘Within You Without You’ came the cover tunes, many that we’re unlikely to hear the likes of again. That’s one of the reasons to see Patti in concert: she’s always covering old songs in new ways.

This was the 12th year Patti was closing out the year at The Bowery Ballroom and each year Patti honors the recently departed. Saying that Jim Carroll was “the greatest poet of my generation,” Patti yielded the stage and let Lenny Kaye, her cohort of over 35 years, lead the band through two of Jim’s songs: ‘Still Life’ and ‘People Who Died.’ The performances galvanized the crowd; I’m sure I’m not the only who made a mental note to play The Jim Carroll Band when they got back home.

Four songs forward, Patti and her band were so engrossed in their raucous rendition of The Everly Brothers’ ‘Bye Bye Love’ that they missed the countdown to the New Year. Nobody cared. Holding up a glass of champagne, Patti’s bassist Tony Shanahan said “Let’s have our own countdown!” And so we did: we happily yelled out the numbers, shouted “HAPPY NEW YEAR! and brought in the new year on our own terms. Everybody then sang ‘Auld Lang Syne’.’

The concert resumed with an unmemorable rendition of ‘Ghost Dance,’ but then it’s never been a personal favorite. Lenny did ‘Blue Moon,’ the old Rodgers and Hart standard, with a nice doo-wop ending. An uplifting ‘Love Train’ – the old O’Jays hit – got us all singing in unison again, even those of us who never would’ve listened to it when it was a number 1 hit back in 1973. (Now we realize just how much pop hits contribute to society’s fabric.) Patti then closed the set with her own hit ‘Because The Night.’

Coming back out for the encore, Patti began apologizing for missing the New Year’s countdown only to be interrupted by the crowd counting down and bringing in the New Year again. She seemed genuinely moved and said “You’re a really great audience.”

We didn’t get ‘Land’ or ‘Gloria’ (she had played those the previous night ) but we did get ‘Rock ‘n’ roll Nigger,’ her ageless rocker. It wasn’t a long version – around the 6- or 7-minute mark I’d guess - but it was fiery and fitting as the guitars rang out the old and everyone in the ballroom embraced the new decade with renewed energy. We all walked out into the drying New York City night smiling.

It was like Patti said at the outset: “I think it’s going to be a great decade. We’ll all be happy in hell!”