\n<\/p>\n
Smith was recounting the story over dinner with Stipe one night in September. They were at a restaurant in Covington, Ky., just across the river from Cincinnati, where Smith had a gig the following night. Stipe had accompanied her from New York. It was Fred Smith\u2019s birthday \u2014 he would have been 75 \u2014 and the heaviness of his loss and the delight in his memory seemed to smear together, coloring the whole night.<\/p>\n
Watching Smith and Stipe together over the next couple of days, I found myself wishing the English language had words to capture all possible varieties of friendship, because theirs felt so specific. He doted on her, like a valet. She worried after him and took pleasure in poking a little fun. At dinner, Smith kept turning away to cough, and each time, Stipe would tactfully pass an open container of homeopathic lozenges across the table. When, during another meal, Stipe told the server: \u201cI\u2019m going to have the ni\u00e7oise salad, but I\u2019ll open with the buffalo mozzarella,\u201d Smith chortled and teased: \u201cOpen<\/em> with!\u201d Then, when Smith left the room, Stipe turned to me, beaming, and said, \u201cIsn\u2019t she amazing?\u201d<\/p>\n Smith was playing a festival in downtown Cincinnati organized and headlined by the National. For an hour, as the sun went down, she tramped around the stage in chunky black boots, mashing her pelvis into the air, into the music, while she spelled out \u201cG-L-O-R-I-A.\u201d And the whole time she was out there, being Patti Smith, Stipe watched from the side of the stage, in a \u201cPATTI SMITH LOCAL CREW\u201d T-shirt, being the world\u2019s most energetic Patti Smith fan: snapping pictures, crossing and recrossing his arms as he bounded around to take her in from every possible angle. Later in the night, Smith reappeared to sing a song with the National but lost her grasp on the melody and timing momentarily. Walking off, she seemed slightly shellshocked, sapped of her superpowers, like a 76-year-old person for the first time all night. Stipe stepped forward to offer her a bottle of water. Smith whispered something to him, and he laughed, and there in the wings, washed in music, with the edges of the National\u2019s stage lighting splashing over them, they stood still and hugged for a very long time.<\/p>\n The National had asked Stipe to perform a song with them too. But Stipe declined. He didn\u2019t feel great in his body, he told me \u2014 he was 15 pounds too heavy, he said \u2014 and didn\u2019t want to be photographed onstage. Stipe had been one of the National\u2019s musical heroes since they were young; The National\u2019s bassist, Scott Devendorf, told me that, as kids from Ohio, they found it empowering that R.E.M. was from Georgia and not New York or Los Angeles. Then, in 2008, the National opened for R.E.M. on what was ultimately the band\u2019s final tour. They befriended Stipe and benefited from his guidance. (The National\u2019s singer, Matt Berninger, has described the album his band made after that tour as \u201cus following all of Michael\u2019s advice.\u201d) Aaron Dessner of the National told me, \u201cI try not to be a fan, because we\u2019re friends.\u201d But Dessner loves Stipe\u2019s voice so much, he said, that sometimes just listening to a voice memo from Stipe makes him have to go listen to a bunch of R.E.M. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n