Iggy & the Stooges

This was a surprise, last minute event for me. Steve had an extra ticket, and a couple of days before the show asked me if I wanted to go. I, of course, said yea! I've seen Iggy by himself a couple of times: once at the old Hammerjack's in Baltimore (for the Instinct tour) and once at 930 (for the Skull Ring tour). The guy's just amazing to see live, plus to see the (semi) original Stooges together again was something I couldn't pass up. (BTW, I'm three for three on 930 shows webcast on npr.org -- the Stooges show was also streamed on NPR.)

I met Steve et al at the new Duffy's pub right across the street from 930. Pretty good place. We had a coupla beers there, and then hit the scene. We caught the last bit of the first opening band, whose name I don't remember, and they were a NY Dolls/Stones type of rock and roll band, complete w/ scantily clad female backup singers. The second opener, Sistas in the Pit, were pretty energetic, slightly funky rock band. The bassist said she was from DC. They were pretty good.

But, the main event... The Stooges came on around midnight (whew, that's late) -- 930 club does late shows once in a while where they'll have two shows in one night. The earlier show on this night was Albert Hammond, Jr. and Mooney Suzuki. I knew going into it that this was gonna be a late night. When The Stooges came on, they frontloaded the set w/ the classics: Loose, 1970, I Wanna Be Your Dog, TV Eye, No Fun, etc. It was great, and Iggy was super manic. The crowd was very mixed age-wise, but there were plenty of oldsters there. A pit emerged pretty quickly once things kicked off, and I was surprised to see some of those oldsters in there. But most of the oldsters (and when I say oldsters, I *always* mean they're older than me!) hung back. There one grey guy who was intent on protecting his woman, almost to a fault. I can't blame a guy too much for being chivalrous, especially in that kind of atmosphere, but this guy was a little too diligent.

Another good crowd anecdote: there was a security guy planted right at the center edge of the pit keeping an eye on things. We saw this older looking dude jumping around in front of the security guy, and then he started to push the security dude in a friendly "hey let's slam" kind of way (not that aggressively). It didn't take long for the security dude to get pissed -- after a few shoves, he quickly escorted the guy out. I felt bad for the guy, but you gotta know who you're shoving around.

The band played one encore comprised mostly of new stuff (at least, I didn't recognize it), but then closed out the show with *another* version of "I Wanna Be Your Dog"! Which was weird, and kinda unnecessary. Oh yea, and they didn't play *anything* off of Raw Power. Not sure why, but maybe it was because that was a different line up of the band (?). Disappointing, whatever the reason may be.

There were a couple of local celebrity sightings too: Ian MacKaye and Kenny Inouye were in attendance. It's good to see The Stooges pull such a high quality crowd!

By the end of things, I got home at 2am, which hella sucked. But now that I'm home one night later, I can say that it was worth it. If you had asked me whether it was worth it when I woke up this morning to go to work, I'm not sure I would've been so convinced of that.

Cool bonus Iggy Pop link!
- Great interview w/ Iggy done by Weasel on WHFS in 1980