A combination of Patti Smith’s admirable refusal to take the easy option and the understanding that appearing at Meltdown means doing something special ensured that she not so much pushed the boat out, as enrolled on a shipbuilding course in order to build the thing.

What ensued was a sometimes frustrating, sometimes inspired, dizzying mess.

White Stripes drummer Meg White’s mother-in-law since last month, Smith played up the batty aunt act (imagine Germaine Greer without the sex obsession): apologising to her spectacles for sitting on them (“thank you for not breaking”); pulling her guitar stand over with her lead and pretending to mishear heckles.

But she turned stern when discussing London’s architecture: “Beware overfilling your city with ugly buildings which destroy your culture”.

The evening was packed with animated readings set to varying music backdrops courtesy of an eclectic cast ranging from Portishead’s Adrian Utley and Red Hot Chili Pepper Flea to The Master Musicians Of Jajouka and the superlative six-piece Silver Mt Zion Memorial Orchestra.

In full poet mode, Smith adapted favourite songs including Piss Factory and People Have The Power, as well as her actual poems, most notably Eve Of All Saints, an unsettling tribute to Smith’s late husband Fred which featured their daughter Jesse on piano.

And there was even the occasional tune, such as the unrecorded Nine (that most unusual of concepts; a sombre jig); Wild Leaves, written for the silly photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and a doom-laden My Blakean Year.

Yet, for all their individual appeal, the volume of readings — presumably because it’s easier to rehearse improvisational settings than actual songs — sapped the evening’s spirit and by the time the event really caught fire with no-holds-barred charges through Pissing in a River and Ghost Dance we were already in the encore.