"Australia's Bob Dylan" Courtney Barnett shared a touching moment on stage with the inimitable Patti Smith during her final Australian concert.

Barnett had the honour of opening for Smith at Melbourne's Festival Hall on Thursday night.

Nine songs into Smith's performance, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee invited Barnett back on stage to join her on her 1988 song People Have the Power.

Barnett, one of Australia's most successful independent musical exports in recent years, was clearly ecstatic to be sharing the stage with the music legend. 

The Melbourne musician played her trademark dirty guitar along to the anthemic tune, and also shared the mic with Smith and her long-time guitarist Lenny Kaye.

In 2015, Barnett and her partner Jen Cloher – who also attended the Festival Hall gig – performed Horses in concert at the Melbourne Festival, along with local musicians Adalita Srsen and the Drones' Gareth Liddiard.

This year, Smith brought the 40th anniversary Horses show, which she has been touring since 2015, to Australia, playing three shows each in Sydney and Melbourne.

A seventh and final show, not confined to the album format, was later added in Melbourne with Barnett.

Performing in the big, shed-like venue gave Smith and her band – who had been playing venues such as the State Theatre, usually reserved for opera or ballet – the chance to rock out.

They delivered favourites such as Dancing Barefoot, Because the Night, Gloria, Rock n Roll Nigger, and Dylan's A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall – which Smith notoriously messed up at his Nobel Prize ceremony last year.

Smith's management said this Australian tour, her first in eight years, will be her last.