By: David Schultz

Only ten minutes into The Stooges' set at New York City's United Palace Theatre, Iggy Pop flung himself into the crowd with a remarkably spry stage dive. Two minutes later, he crawled like a dog along the theater floor while original members Ron Asheton (guitar), Scott Asheton (drums) and recent addition, Mike Watt (bass) pounded out the primordial crunge of "I Wanna Be Your Dog." Hitting the stage with wildly spastic energy, Pop had every reason to get all his signature moves in early: efficiency can be a plus when you are nearing 60 years old.

The sight and sound of old punk rock bands attempting to recapture their old glory can be a recipe for disaster. For Iggy & The Stooges, the ages on their birth certificates couldn't have been verified by listening to them on stage. The Stooges sound as fresh and powerful as the scores of bands influenced by their late-Sixties, early-Seventies material that predated the furiously aggressive punk rock era. The Stooges' show thrived on raw power, even if the set list didn't include any songs from Raw Power.

Hardly a warning against the lasting evils of heroin, Pop looks like he's in phenomenal shape. Shirtless the entire show, Pop animatedly bounded about the stage looking nothing like a rocker nearing AARP status. With his wiry, muscular frame and long hair, which he flaps around with abandon, he could easily pass for Anthony Kiedis' father. Pop not only slithered and snaked his way across the stage, he practically shimmied out of his pants. As the show carried on, Pop's head of steam faded and by the end of the show he simply stalked the stage, throwing his arms about in a semi-coordinated dance and occasionally trying to keep his pants up.

The Stooges' constructed their set list primarily from their 1969 self-titled debut, Fun House, their 1970 follow-up and the recently released The Weirdness. The Ashetons and Watt provided a serious aural assault: Ron Asheton pounded away viciously on his guitar while Watt, the former Minuteman, rapidly ran through multiple bass riffs nearly drowning out Scott Asheton's drumming. Halfway through the set, saxophonist Steve MacKay joined the madness, providing some jazzy, dissonant sax to "Fun House" and some of the newer material. They held back "1969" until the encore but otherwise ran through their back catalogue, including all but one song from Fun House, in the early parts of the show. By the time they featured their more recent material, the songs simply started to run into each other, sounding all the same.



The spirit of The Stooges' ethos crosses generational lines which were represented by the mixed crowd that came to see them at the inconveniently located United Palace. The healthy number of Baby Boomers, content to relive a few memories without exerting themselves too physically, remained near the back of the theater while the more rambunctious once-and-always punk rockers moshed, waved their hands in the air and crowd surfed amidst the troublesome confines of the seats.

The punk rock that The Stooges gave birth to thrived on an impending sense of danger, wild releases of energy which resulted in wild slam dancing; one's physical safety couldn't always be presumed. Iggy & The Stooges brought that sense of trepidation to the United Palace. After Pop opened the floodgates by inviting the crowd up from the floor during "Real Good Time," the stage teemed with people. Many just waved their arms overhead, happy to part of the show, others dancing merrily at the back, a few rambunctiously flailed about. Woefully ill prepared to handle the situation, security had a hard time clearing the stage during the ensuing "No Fun" with some resorting to roughly manhandling people while Pop & The Stooges kept on playing. Not everything goes though at the punk rock show: one fan's misguided attempt to remedy the lack of space by throwing his chair at Iggy after ripping it out of the ground expectedly met with disapproval from security who quickly placed him under arrest.

A renovated movie theater that currently houses Rev. Ike's ministry, the gorgeous United Palace Theatre, which has just recently started accepting concert bookings through Bowery Presents, is miserably equipped to handle the shows of the size and scope they've booked. Compounding minor inconveniences like mislabeled rows and unlabeled seat numbers, the ushering staff remained relatively incognito leaving some people wandering aimlessly as they looked for their seats or baffled as to which unmarked chair might be theirs. The failure to turn on the air circulation system before The Stooges took the stage resulted in a stifling atmosphere only matched by the frigidity when the temperature dropped precipitously once the air kicked in. Once the Stooges finished the night with a steamrolling version of "Little Electric Chair," the crowd proceeded to the exits only to be bottlenecked as there were too few exits to properly handle the capacity crowd.

Refusing to let age slow them down, Iggy & The Stooges pulled out many of their old tricks. If the seventy-five minute set had any deficiencies, The Stooges masked them with volume, intensity and speed. Older fans got a satisfying dose of nostalgia and those too young to see The Stooges in their prime got to see and hear one the true forefathers of modern-day rock and roll. Fortunately for everyone, Iggy left the peanut butter at home.

Labels: Iggy Pop, The Stooges