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Story by Holiday Girod
Photos by Barry Brecheisen
At an age when many are getting fitted for Rascal scooters and
Depends, 63-year old Iggy Pop's performance last Sunday in Chicago
proved that this punk rock progenitor isn't about to give into the
trappings of old age without one helluva good fight. Iggy was in town
with his reformed band The Stooges, featuring original drummer Scott
Asheston and sax player Steve MacKay, along with ex-Minuteman bassist
Mike Watt and guitarist James Williamson, who was The Stooges' lead
guitarist on their then-largely ignored and now-highly lauded 1973
album Raw Power, and is now back with the band after last year's death
of co-founder and lead guitarist Ron Asheton.
While The Stooges may have only appealed to a small core group of
music lovers and critics in the early '70s, they were universally
treated like rock royalty when they first reformed in 2003 after a 30-
year hiatus, With sold-out concerts and massive rock festivals around
the world, resounding press-accolades (save for their less-than-
stellar 2007 album The Weirdness) and, earlier this year, their
induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (whatever that means,
considering that Abba also got in at the same time), it seems these
one-time misfits of rock could do little wrong.
What The Stooges proved last Sunday is that even in their 60s, these
old timers can rock as hard and as dangerously as they did in their
youth, while also turning in a more volatile and, yes, professional
show then any act a third of their age. Slender, shirtless and sinewy
as ever, Iggy was a sweat-soaked ball of boundless energy through
their surprisingly short but sweet 75 minute set; catapulting his half-
naked frame from one end of the stage to the other, hurling mic stands
dangerously close to the audience, groveling on all fours like a rabid
dog, and continually jumping into the swallowing arms of his audience
as if it were an instinct he couldn't control if he wanted to.
Williamson stood stoically behind Iggy delivering stinging leads and
clobbering slabs of rhythm guitar, while Asheton and Watt (the latter
slacked-jawed and in a spread-eagle stance all night due to his full
leg brace from a recent knee injury) added a sense of urgency and
foreboding danger with their thundering backline.
When Iggy first reformed The Stooges with the brothers Asheton and
Watt earlier this decade they only performed material from their first
two albums (1969's The Stooges and Funhouse from 1970), but this
Chicago set with Williamson featured all eight tracks from Raw Power
(including favorites such as "Search and Destroy," "Gimme Danger," the
title track which kicked open their show, "Death Trip" and "Shake
Appeal" where Iggy invited a dozen-plus audience members up on the
stage to display their own 'shake appeal'). They also included great
takes on songs such as "Beyond The Law" and the more muscular
revamping of the instrumental "Night Theme," both from Pop and
Williamson's vastly underrated 1977 Kill City album (which
coincidently is getting a long-overdue sonic overhaul on its
forthcoming October reissue through Alive and Bomp! Records). Even
their closing number "No Fun," a 1969 song which deals with the
boredom of Midwestern youth (or more accurately Iggy's own boredom
growing up in Ann Arbor, MI in the mid-to-late '60s) couldn't help but
smack of irony through the band's slinky and exciting take of this
underground classic. No fun, my ass.
It's explosive and physically demanding performances like this that is
a welcome reminder of what the true meaning and spirit of rock & roll
is all about. For over 40 years Iggy has and still continues to throw
every ounce of muscle, blood and sweat into his performance as if he
had some sort of death wish. Of course when the grim reaper eventually
is standing front-and-center, Iggy will probably lunge into his arms
with the same voracity as he does into the waiting arms of his fans,
howling the lyrics he sang earlier this night in Chicago, "Blow my
cool, bite my lip... See me through on my death trip."
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